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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

(SMITHSONIAN DEPOSIT.) 

Chap- (PS ) 5-6-4- 
DNITED STATES OF' AMERICA. 



Oo 



■ 







Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/poemsbyedithmay01drin 



) / J 




Philadelphia 



PUBLISHED QYE.H.E 



POEMS 



BY 



EDITH MAY. 






iJoeAj 



ELEGANTLY ILLUSTRATED BY 
CHENEY, DEVEREUX, EURNESS, GREATBACH, ETC. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PUBLISHED BY E. H. BUTLER & CO. 
1852. 





Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1S51, by 

E. H. BUTLER & Co., 

in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the 

Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 




Ipttiw. 



Much and often as the threshold of fame is profaned by 
■wilful or mistaken intruders, there is something inexpres- 
sibly sacred and touching in the first timid footsteps 
toward its shining altar, taken by the young and pure aspir- 
ant who is obeying a beckoning hand which the world can- 
not yet see. The feeling of deference and honour with 
which one recognises the mien and utterance of true genius, 
is mingled irresistibly with the thought of its counterba- 
lancing ills — the thirsts for which common life has no 
water, and the keener sensibilities, for which human 
allotment has neither protection nor allowance. At the 

same threshold, too, stand the crowds of rejected and dis- 

(5) 



vi PREFACE. 

appointed, who vindictively dispute the claim and dis- 
courage the hesitating footsteps of the new comer ; and, 
for these ills — tracking genius as they do to the grave — 
neither the viewless lips which give words to what no other 
mortal could have uttered, nor the "second sight" which 
reveals what no other mortal could have seen, nor the con- 
sciousness of a higher nature when alone, nor the whispers 
of spirits and angels which are never found not to have 
been human thoughts till envy and malice have poisoned 
all else, seem to be a sufficient compensation. One looks 
upon youthful genius, thus double-laden with gifts and ills, 
as one sees the victim prepared with bright flowers for the 
knife. 

It is not one of the least of the conventional disregards 
of genius, that the recognition and welcome at the thresh- 
old of fame's temple are chance-given, if at all ; and that, 
in place of a responsible and respectful warden at this 
gate, where enters what the world should most honour, 
there is likelier to be found only the base crowd of hinder- 
ers and detractors, by whom the timid knock of the young 
pilgrim is treated as a crime. It is by his chance vicinity 
to the place where should stand a higher and better autho- 



PEEFACE. vii 

rized discharger of the office, that the editor of a public 
journal may sometimes be the first to see that a fine spirit 
stands waiting without, and for lack of better usher, he 
may advance to claim entrance for the stranger. The 
introducer of the present work to the public is in that 
position. If it seem that his task might be done with 
better grace by one having more authority, his apology 
has been made in what he has just written. 

Of the poems in this volume, and of the powers of the 
fair poetess, the writer has expressed his opinions very 
fully in the journal of which he is editor, and to which 
some of them were originally contributed. Beautiful as 
these early productions are, however, he looks upon them 
mainly as promises. They have been written upon the 
leaf of life first turned over after girlhood — in the lap of 
luxury and seclusion, with no inspiration save what comes 
from the instincts of the heart and conversance with the 
romantic scenery around her home. They are literally 
the fore-reachings of genius which anticipate the teachings 
of experience. 

How Edith May would sing of the realities of life, hav- 



viii PREFACE. 

ing thus hymned her chant from the far shadows it throws 
upon her imagination, those who have watched the tuning 
of inspiration by sorrow and struggle will easily conceive. 
The single poem of " Te Deum Laudamus" which will 
be found on a succeeding page, shows the port and mien 
of one Avhose walk in the highest fields of poetry would 
be that of inborn stateliness and fitness. The rhythm has 
an instinctive power and dignity, showing the key to which 
the mind is habitually toned, and the conception and man- 
agement of the subject are full of originality and beauty. 
Those who read this and the other poems will have had a 
star named to them, for whose future place and shining 
they will look ; and, in this first announcing of a light that 
is to be recognised and brighten hereafter, is to be found 
the main errand which the introducer would claim for the 
present volume. 

N. P. Willis. 



Cflufrnt0. 



PAUE 

MADDALENA'S CONFESSION 37 

OCTOBER TWILIGHT . . ....... 57 

GUIDO SAVELLA 61 

A TRUE STORY OF A FAWN 79 

THE TOWER OF LAHNECK 83 

THE CHAPLET OF BRONZE . . . . . . . .93 

JULIETTE 98 

PRATER 107 

THEODORA .113 

EOLIE 117 

SUMMER 120 

LADY CLARE 124 

STORM AT TWILIGHT 127 

(9) 



x CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

THE COLOURING OF HAPPINESS 129 

THE PALACE OP ECHOES . . . . . . . .132 

THE BROWN MANTLE 136 

A SONG FOR AUTUMN 139 

UNREST 141 

A WINTER NIGHT'S THOUGHT 144 

COUNT JULIO 147 

DAME MARGARET 1G0 

FOREST SCENE 162 

TWILIGHT 166 

THE SEASONS • . .163 

THE LOVE QUARREL 170 

REST 174 

DECEMBER 177 

A POET'S LOVE 179 

ALINE'S CHOICE 182 

FROST PICTURES 185 

FROM A TRUE WIFE TO ONE OVER BOLDE .... 1S9 

LINES WRITTEN FOR A PICTURE 191 

INCONSTANCY 193 

THE WINGED HORSEMAN 195 

TWO CHANTS 199 

A FRAGMENT 202 

LINES . . • 204 

GUENDOLEN 207 



Twl d IllaattatinnH. 



PORTRAIT OF "EDITH MAY." 



ENGRAVED BY CHENEY FROM AN ORIGINAL DRAWING BY FURNESS. 



II. 

TITLE. 

DESIGNED BY DEVEREUX. 

I know a brake where sleeps the fawn, 
The soft-eyed fawn, through noon's repose. 

Page 162. 
(11) 



LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS. 

in. 

OCTOBER TWILIGHT. 

DESIGNED BY DEVEREUX. 

I can distinguish now 
The labourer returning from his toil 
With shouldered spade, and weary, laggard foot. 

Page 59. 

IV. 

TRUE STORY OF A FAWN. 

DESIGNED BY DEVEREUX. 

And the weary hunter stood 
Looking down on his cot below. 

Page SO. 

V. 

JULIETTE. 

DESIGNED BY DEVEREUX. 

Where the rough crags lift, and the sea mews call, 
Yet frowns Earl Hubert's castle tall. 



Page 9S. 



VI. 

EOLIE. 

DESIGNED BY DEVEREUX. 

Our tryst we keep till stars convene, 
Till, Thetis-like, from deeps of blue 
Up wends the silver-footed queen. 



Pago 11^. 



Page 124. 



LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS. 

VII. 

LADY CLARE. 

DESIGNED BY DEVEREOX. 

I'll drink a blithe bridal to you, Lady Clare ! 
VIII. 

THE BROWN MANTLE. 

DESIGNED BY DEYEREUX. 



She hath been leaning o'er the saintly book 
Her clasped hands rest upon. 

Page 13 



IX. 
COUNT JULIO. 

DESIGNED BY DEVEREUX. 

Perchance to sit 
Hour after hour all silent at his feet. 

Page 119. 



DECEMBER. 



DESIGNED BY DEVEREUX. 



All day long 
The woodman plies his sharp and sudden axe. 

Page 177. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



FROST PICTURES. 

DESIGNED BY DEVEREUX. 

And seas, where, drifting on a raft of ice, 
The she hear rears her young. 

Page 187 



O— 



f (DC® 



MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 

The Bride of Christ! oh, at those words there swept 

Bright glories through my spirit! I was deaf 

To the deep anthem. Prelate and stoled priest, 

The dim cathedral walls, the kneeling crowd, 

The lattice where the black-robed nuns looked through 

All passed away from mine enraptured eyes. 

I saw no more thy bowed form, oh, my mother! 

Nor his who stood far down the aisle of columns 

Hiding his bent brow with his mantle's fold. 

It seems not long since I, a little child, 

Trod yon cathedral floors, and in deep awe, 

First crossed my forehead with the holy water. 

(37) 



38 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 

It seems not long, Jacopo, since we twain 

Prayed, kneeling at one shrine, together sent 

Our mated voices like paired larks to heaven, 

Or, hand in hand, walked where the garden fountains 

Cleft the grim lion mouths. 

Have patience, father ! 
For I am worn with fasting and much prayer, 
And tears flow readily. How many days 
Have I lain prostrate at the altar's foot, 
The marble striking death into my heart, 
Speaking no word, partaking of no food 
Save water and the crust that gave me strength 
To move my lips in prayer ! How oft till morn, 
My forehead pressed against His icy feet 
Who hangs upon the cross, have I lain here 
With but one grim companion. Even thou, 
Symbol of death, gaunt prophet of the tomb, 
That in thy cavernous eyes dost hold the night, 
Glaring beside my rosary and missal! 

Thou knowest well my father was a noble. 
That he lived gayly, making his great wealth 



MADDALINA'S CONFESSION. 39 

The slave of pleasure. I remember still 
Revels where wine flowed free, and festal times 
That filled our lone, vast palace by the sea 
With guests and music. Then, at early twilight, 
There ever came a young, bright girl who took 
Me, the weak child, within her gentle hold, 
Smiling so softly while my faint hands passed 
Over the roses in her hair, the pearls 
Clasped on her throat and round, pure, dewy arms. 
Ginevra ! oh, I loved to speak her name ! 
I loved my nurse to bear me to the window 
Where, lying on her shoulder, I could mark 
My sister's white robes floating through the trees, 
My sister as she spake, or walked, or rode, 
Great nobles at her side, who smiled and bent 
Their plumed heads to catch her lightest word. 

But this was for a season ; many months 

The palace was deserted. Then, alone, 

We wandered freely through the vacant rooms, 

I, and my nurse Giuseppa. She would pause 

Sometimes by pictures of worn saints and martyrs, 



40 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 

St. Lawrence in the flames, his lifted face 

Full of sublime forgetfulness of pain, 

Or Stephen stoned and prone ; perchance to mark 

Pale hermits watching in their forest caves 

With lamp and book, the inner darkness shapen 

Into black fiends ; or sometimes, oh, my soul ! 

An Ecce Homo with dim eyes upraised, 

And red drops trickling from the crown of thorns ! 

All these Giuseppa scanned with reverent face ; 

I, in her arms held level with the canvas, 

Looked on in childish fear. 

There came a message 
That said Ginevra, weary of the court, 
Returned to us alone. 

'Twas early noon. 
I, over-wearied, dreamed upon my couch; 
And when I woke my sister stood beside me. 
Ginevra ? no ! — ah heaven ! was that Ginevra 
Who quivered at my fear, and in the sunlight 
Stood shivering ere she bent and faintly pressed 
Her lips upon my brow ! 

I never knew 



MADDALENA'S CONFESSION, 41 

What sorrow like a tearful angel rent 

The veil between my sister's heart and God. 

Her brow was as the forehead of a saint, 

Bearing the marks of thorns, and on her face 

None looked except to breathe a sigh that tracked 

Some upwinged thought to Heaven. Oh, to my sense, 

Her beauty was unreal; whether she prayed 

Kneeling beneath the altar lights, a glory 

Tremulous in her hair, whether we twain 

Paced the long galleries where ranged silver sconces, 

Studding the walls, cast down before our feet 

Black shades like chasms, whether to her voice 

I listened while the stealthy-footed night 

Passed by unchallenged ! As a captive stands 

Vacantly gazing at the world without 

Through his barred prison windows, all his heart 

Busy with other scenes, so looked the soul 

Through her blue holy eyes. I loved her well ! 

I stopped my play to look if she passed by, 

Or if she mused beside the gallery windows 

As was her. wont, I, stealing to her side, 

Stood tiptoe that my arms might clasp her waist, 



42 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 

And sometimes cloistered in her chamber, there 
We read and talked till purple twilight stains 
Sank through the marble pavement. In that room 
There hung a copy of a rare old picture, 
The marriage of St. Catherine. 

I remember 
That she grew farther from me, day by day, 
I guessed not wherefore. Over her blue eyes 
The lids drooped heavily, as lilies loll 
Against the swell of waves. No echo tracked 
Her footstep through the vaulty corridors, 
And often in the night I saw her rise 
To gaze upon St. Catherine's blessed face, 
Or prone before the crucifix, lie there 
Praying till dawn. 

Once more Ginevra stood 
Flower-crowned and jewelled, but beneath the light 
Of tall cathedral tapers. From the crowd 
Quick sobs burst audibly ; the very priests 
Looked with sad eyes ; nuns to the lattice pressed 
And blenched away, but she unconscious stood 
With folded hands, and looks upcast as though 



MADDALENAS CONFESSION. 43 

The vacant space were legible to her gazing. 
Then my fair haughty mother cowered for fear, 
My father's gay lips whitened. 

There are some 
Still in these cloisters who remember well 
An angel on whose lip meek mortal prayer 
Had changed to saintly praise. For week on week, 
The searching lamp of the confessional 
Shining athwart the fair page of her soul 
Showed blot nor blur. They say her Heaven-linked 

voice 
Chanting, the Gloria outsped the choir 
So far, the calm-browed nuns, uplifting eyes 
Dim with the haze of revery, made her notes 
A golden ladder where their souls went up 
Into God's presence ; and 'twas whispered low, 
That when, all through the midnight, from the toll 
Of the last Angelus to the hour of prime, 
She knelt before the Sacrament, a sound 
Of voices pierced the silence. Then, perchance, 
The wakeful guardian stationed at her side 
Revealed himself. 



44 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 

Joyful, and sorrowful, 
And glorious mysteries meekly she had told 
Upon her rosary of years, when death 
Garnered her sweet soul. Mass nor prayer wa said ; 
For those there be who swear a hovering crown 
Rained on her brow faint glory, and around 
Crept music and rich odours, while awed priest 
And kneeling abbess with rapt upraised looks 
Sang the Te Deum Laudamus ! 

So she passed ! 
I bear upon my breast the cross that wore 
Its outline upon hers. 

Thou, earnest, Jacopo, 
Playmate and friend ! 

Do you remember now 
How, while you twined the vine leaves in my hair, 
I told you saintly legends? When we saw 
Fair pictures in the clouds, you made them limn 
Chariots and battling horsemen, but to me 
Came trooping angels. 

Still my sister's chamber 
Seemed hallowed by her presence. Crumbling wreaths 



MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 45 

Dropped from the crucifix. Her favourite books, 
Their pages blistered by her frequent tears, 
Lay open as she left them, marked with flowers, 
Or pencilled down the margin by her hand. 
But most I loved the picture of St. Catherine. 
She kneeling, while the holy child whose touch 
The Virgin guided, on her finger placed 
The marriage ring, his face in lovely wonder 
Raised questioning to his mother's. 

To that place 
I crept at noonday. There I treasured all 
Linked with Ginevra's memory. 'Twas now 
A garland we had woven, now a kerchief 
That kept the faint rose odour she had loved. 
I vexed my childish brain with pondering o'er 
The books she prized ; these, histories of Saints, 
Temptations, miracles, and martyrdoms. 
I peopled all the dark nooks of the palace 
With phantoms of their raising. There, concealed 
All through the slumberous noontide, first I read 
Of Augustine, who heard the voice of God 
Speak to him in the garden ; and of her, 



46 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 

Holy Teresa, who stood face to face 

With Mary's Son, and carried to the tomb 

Remembrance of the vision. When I read 

How, laying down love, wealth, the pride of birth, 

Bowing her shoulders for the cross, this one 

Frail Nun obtained a Saint's repute, becoming 

Founder of monasteries, and of a host 

The spiritual mother, all my soul 

Thrilled with the rapturous history. I could dream 

Only of mysteries ; or, if light shapes 

Beckoned me to the world, there slid between 

Visions of her who o'er an open book 

Hung pondering steadfastly ; one pale, fair hand 

Outspread Upon the page, and one that held 

Her brow within its hollow. Womanhood 

Came, and my heart's betraying echoes scarce 

Answered her loitering footfall. Life grew vague. 

Nothing approached me nearly. 

The first star 
Was a true prophet of thy step, Jacopo ! 
My visions fled when up the flinty paths 
His courser's hoof struck flashes. With a smile 



o— 



MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 47 

My father greeted him; my mother gave 

Her white hand freely, while her laughter mixed 

With their gay talk; and I, a space apart, 

Smiled him glad welcome, with my every pulse 

Answering the cordial music of his voice. 

Oh, he was changed ! I dared no longer chide 

If his bold mirth trod heedlessly too close 

To holy things. I stood with eyes abased ; 

Rebuke awed into silence. He had sprung 

Suddenly to full manhood. In his words 

There was an athlete's sinew, though they played 

With great things carelessly, as a fresh wind 

Provokes the sea to laughter, and his pride 

Ever seemed well placed, like a castle set 

Upon a mountain. All my womanhood 

Did homage to his strength. The life that coiled 

Lazily at my heart, leapt through my veins 

With crest uplift, if mid the halls I heard 

His footfall ring. Oh, father, when he left, 

Gone was the smile from sweet St. Catherine's lip ! 

And the grave saints frowned on me ; and my thoughts, 

Shapen to prayer, put on unholy guise, 



o- 



48 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 

Mocking my vain devotion ! Marvel not ! 

I was a child. Ginevra fled the world, 

Like a chased dove that calms its panting heart 

Under green forest boughs. Life stood unmasked, 

And pleasure mocked her, like a garland twined 

Round a drained wine cup. As a vine that grows 

Over some marble urn, a bird that builds 

Under the cornice of some shattered temple, 

Making its ruin echo with delight, 

So to her heart, rent, filled with bitter dust, 

Came one bright hope. Alas ! my thrilling soul 

Still quivered in the bended bow of life! 

Youth was too mighty. I greAv faint. My heart 

Leapt at a quick word, and light tremors ran 

Painfully through my limbs. My brain waxed dizzy 

Over my books, and I would ponder hours 

Ere I could wrest its meaning from the page 

I strove to read. Or, if I knelt to pray, 

My aimless thoughts went wandering blindly on, 

The prayer I said suspended. Outward things 

Unchallenged touched my senses, that dull stupor 

Muffled like sleep. 



-0 



MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 49 

I stood within St. Peter's, . 
And heard the Miserere. Through the twilight 
Burned thirteen starry tapers. One by one, 
Amid the chanting of the Lamentations, 
These vanished, till the last and brightest, Christ, 
Sank into darkness. With that Hope's extinction, 
Like a retreating wave, the chant withdrew 
Beneath the cave-like shadows. Rippling echoes 
Tracked it to silence. Father, on my lips 
The stillness pressed as a remorseless hand ! 
Above, the gray-winged twilight, like a moth 
Clung to the arches. I did strive to pray, 
And through my soul the slow-paced, cloistered thoughts 
Trod, saying " Miserere !" Deep the pause 
That from the shores of that hushed music stretched 
Like a black-throated chasm. I grew sick 
Hearing the echoes sound it ! While I gasped, 
As 'twere a bird borne over an abyss 
On one bruised wing, athwart the chapel roof 
Fluttered a voice so sad, my panting heart 
Breathed in one gush of tears. I doubt not, Priest ! 
White angels standing in God's presence then 



50 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 

Leant on their harps and wept ! The low notes failed 

Exhaustedly. But as they ceased, oh Heaven ! 

As 'twere a scimitar quick bared, a shaft 

Hurled by a giant, a prolonged, loud shriek 

Leapt through the gloom, and like a dart rebounding 

Fell, shivered into echoes ! Holy Mary ! 

My every pulse thrilled with a separate pain ! 

All through the crowd a light electric shiver 

Passed like a link. All dimly from mine eyes 

Fled the dark forms of priest and cardinal 

And Heaven's vicegerent in his pontiff robes ! 

I must have fallen, but for one steadfast arm 

Girding my waist like iron. Scarce I marked 

How the whole choir, with thick, sore sobs, bewailed 

Christ's death. I know not what of sudden brightness 

Rushed o'er my dazzled sense. Dispute it not ! 

I saw the darkness cloven by wings that took 

Light like a prism, and when the rifted gloom 

Closed on their upward flight, my senses, prone, 

Met its returning pressure. 

This was April, 
And ere my dumb soul spoke again, the grape 



MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 51 

Was purple on the hills. Oh, I was weak 
As a young child! Jacopo in his arms, 
Would bear me to the sea-shore, where I sat 
Long,, vacant hours, numbering the waves, 
Counting the drifting clouds. They sang me songs. 
The music pleased me, but the married words 
My dull ear noted not. Yet every day 
Lifted my prostrate faculties. At last 
The old life came to me again, and I 
Lived with my books and memories. 

Yet, oh heaven ! 
The dense gloom of the Roman chapel seemed 
Stifling my soul. A horror brooded o'er me. 
To my weak brain most dark forebodings came, 
As night-birds haunt a ruin. As one left 
In a dense labyrinth seeks in vain the outlet 
As a lost bird that beats its wings against 
The black roof of a cavern, so my thought, 
Conscious of light, pursued it. Pleasure came, 
And Fear uplifting with unsteady hand 
Her wan lamp, by its shifting rays transformed 
The siren to a spectre. Did I stoop 



52 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 

To pluck a joy that seemed to common eyes 

Dewy with innocence, lo, underneath, 

There coiled some black temptation ! The wide world 

Was all a paradise where every tree 

Held fruit forbidden. Whither could I fly? 

Into dim solitudes, through trooping crowds, 

Horror pursued me with extended arms. 

Trembling I lingered in Ginevra's chamber, 

There forcibly impelled, there paralyzed 

By the cold, haunting presence of the dead. 

Oh, God ! I heard her footsteps track the floor ! 

Oh, God ! I wakened from my sleep to feel 

That I had scared away some brooding thing ! 

And once — believe it, father ! — in the moonlight 

I saw her in her death-robes stand and point 

Her white, still finger to the pictured bridal ! 

They said that I grew like her, like the novice 
Some still remembered ; she who smiled farewell, 
Thrusting her white hands through the convent grating ! 
Like the pale saint who, with the crucifix 
Betwixt her palms, spake softly as she trod 



MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 53 

The solitary chambers, Avith her prayers 
Coupling the moments ; not like her, the bright 
Aurora of my childhood, on whose knee 
I have lain listless, through my fingers slipping 
Pearl chains for rosaries ! 

Still if I walked 
One step kept pace with mine ; or if reclining 
Mid the cleft rocks, I heard the sea rehearse 
Its ancient song of chaos, every wave 
Rhyming its fellow, still my heart took note 
Of a timed footfall on the upper shore 
Advancing and retreating. If I read, 
And from my book glanced suddenly, I thrilled, 
Knowing who stood apart, and on my face 
Looked with a strange intentness. 

Oh, thou world ! 
Thy warm arms clave to me, thy painted lips 
Cheated my senses ! To my sleep came fiends 
That mocked me with his smile, put on his shape, 
Spake with his voice, till, starting from my couch, 
Thy name, Jacopo, first upon my lip, 
I feared to speak God's after ! Then came prayers, 



54 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 

Fasts, and harsh penances. There was a chamber 

Ginevra loved ; a dim, square, lofty room, 

Crossed and re-crossed by arches, paven ■with marbles 

Stained in sea hues. One silver shining lamp 

That burned behind a column, brake the night 

With its still radiance. There, when midnight came, 

Crept I as stealthily, with naked feet 

Treading the corridors. There my faint soul 

Staggered beneath its cross ! The niched saints, only, 

Might hear my heart shriek as I walled it in ! 

The marble where my forehead lay kept not 

Count of my tears ; — and there, when fasts prolonged 

Vanquished my sense, while life, the jailor, slept, 

Came angels that unlocked the prison doors 

And bade my soul go free. Athwart my brain 

Flash and withdraw into the cloud of sense 

That holds them captive, memories too bright 

For human keeping, dumb, sweet dreams that passed 

With finger laid on lip. Oh, gracious father, 

Great is my faith in penance, that chains down 

The senses in their cells, scourges the passions 

Into meek virtues, and converts the house 



MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 55 

Where worldly guests held revel, to a cloister 
Trod by pure visions and up-glancing prayers ! 

There came release. 'Twas midnight, and I seemed 

In dreams to kneel as kneels the Bride of Christ. 

Yet, not Madonna, but my sister guided 

The hand that placed the marriage ring on mine. 

While yet I slept, a sound of many wings 

Filled all the air, and at my ear a voice 

Chanted a cradle-hymn. Then I awoke 

And heard the echoes keep one lingering note ! 

They told me 'twas a dream, but felt I not 
The constant pressure of the bridal ring? 
And knew I not, though dim to human eyes, 
How bright 'twould shine hereafter ? Up to God 
I sped my fresh hopes, that, wing-wearied, turned 
To earth's most blessed shelter. Priest, as pure 
As Catherine, the first nun, I wedded Heaven ! 
The tresses they have shorn were ne'er unbound 
By love's light hand ; the beauty that I laid, 



56 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 

As 'twere a blossom, on His holy shrine, 
Kept sacred, all, from love's profaning touch ! 

Last fled I here. With many tears, my mother, 

Wouldst thou have stayed me, and Jacopo, — nay, 

I was appalled to look on his white lips ! 

Once, I remember, in my brief novitiate 

When by the convent wall, I paused to mark 

The singing of a bird, and from above 

There dropped a written scroll. Oh saints, what wild, 

Idolatrous words defaced its blotted page ! 

I dared not look upon the writer's name. 

'Twas sin to read, I know, for all the morn 

There was that ringing through my unquiet soul 

That outvoiced organ, chorister, and priest ! 



OCTOBER TWILIGHT. 

Oh mute among the months, October, thou, 

Like a hot reaper when the sun goes down 

Reposing in the twilight of the year! 

Is yon the silver glitter of thy scythe 

Drawn thread-like on the west? September comes 

Humming those waifs of song June's choral days 

Left in the forest, but thy tuneless lips 

Breathe only a pervading haze that seems 

Visible silence, and thy Sabbath face 

Scares swart November, from yon northern hills 

Foreboding like a raven. Yellow ferns 

Make thee a couch ; thou sittest listless there, 

Plucking red leaves for idleness ; full streams 

(57) 



58 OCTOBER TWILIGHT. 

Coil to thy feet where fawns that come at noon 
Drink with upglancing eyes. 

Upon this knoll, 
Studded with long-stemmed maples, ever first 
To take the breeze, I have lain summer hours, 
Seeing the blue sky only, and the light 
Shifting from leaf to leaf. Tree-top and trunk 
Now lift so steadily, the airiest spray 
Seems painted on the azure. Evening comes 
Up from the valley; over-lapping hills, 
Tipped by the sunset, burn like funeral lamps 
For the dead day; no pomp of tinsel clouds 
Breaks the pure hyaline the mountains gird — 
A gem without a flaw — but sharply drawn 
On its transparent edge, a single tree 
That has cast down its drapery of leaves, 
Stands like an athlete with broad arms outstretched, 
As if to keep November's winds at bay. 
Below, on poised wings, a hovering mist 
Follows the course of streams ; the air grows thick 
Over the dells. Mark how the wind, like one 
That gathers simples, flits from herb to herb, 



OCTOBER TWILIGHT. 59 

Through the damp valley, muttering the while 

Low incantations ! From the wooded lanes 

Loiters a bell's dull tinkle, keeping time 

To the slow tread of kine ; and I can see 

By the rude trough the waters overbrim 

The unyoked oxen gathered ; some, athirst, 

Stoop drinking steadily, and some have linked 

Their horns in playful war. Koads climb the hills, 

Divide the forests, and break off, abrupt, 

At the horizon ; hither, from below 

There comes a sound of lumbering, jarring wheels. 

The sound just struggles up the steep ascent, 

Then drones off in the distance. Nearer still, 

A rifle's rattling charge starts up the echoes, 

That flutter like scared birds, and pause awhile 

As on suspended wings, ere sinking slow 

To their low nests. I can distinguish now 

The labourer returning from his toil 

With shouldered spade, and weary, laggard foot ; 

The cattle straying down the dusty road ; 

The sportsman, balancing his idle gun, 

Whistling a light refrain, while close beside 



60 OCTOBER TWILIGHT. 

His hound with trailing ears, and muzzle dropt, 
Follows some winding scent. From the gray east, 
Twilight, up-glancing with dim fearful eyes, 
Warns me away. 

The dusk sits like a bird 
Up in the tree-tops, and swart, elvish shadows 
Dart from the wooded pathways. Wraith of day ! 
Through thy transparent robes the stars are plain ; 
Along those swelling mounds that look like graves, 
Where flowers grow thick in June, thy step falls soft 
As the dropt leaves ; amid the faded brakes 
The wind, retreating, hides, and cowering there, 
Whines at thy coming like a hound afraid. 



GUIDO SAVELLA. 



"Oh! to his fancy 
Heated and overwrought, its beauty grew 
Warm, living, human ! And he loved a picture, 
Following the wanderings of an erring brain, 
His heart went from him, blindly and astray." 



Save that with early morn a funeral train 

Wound through the gateway, there had reigned all day 

Silence unbroken in Savella's house. 

The close-drawn curtains hung in motionless folds, 

The fountain in the court had ceased to play, 

And when eve came, a single lonely taper 

e (61) 



62 GUIDO SAVELLA. 

Burning through midnight, marked the chamber where 
Savella mourned his fair-haired English bride. 

There had been marks of fetters on her wrists 
As they lay crossed in death, and from her brow 
Long tresses had been shaven. At her side 
There wept a child that from its infancy 
Had never known a mother's fostering love ; 
And they who robed her body for the tomb, 
Whispered together of a fatal curse 
Entailed upon her high-born race for crimes 
Now unrecorded. 

'Twas the vintage time. 
Winter passed on, and early March outbloomed 
The June of colder climes. Savella's halls 
Still curtained out the sunshine, though a shade 
Seemed fallen from their gloom. For if a breeze 
Swept through the vaulted chambers, it would bring 
Soft laughter, and a sound of children's steps, 
And sometimes through the muffling drapery peered 
A boy's small face, and now a baby girl 
Half balancing, half guarded by his arm, 



GUIDO SAYELLA. 63 

Leaned from the deep-cut windows, and for sport, 
Shook down the rings of her gold-coloured hair. 

Change followed change ; the delicate shades of grief 

Blend imperceptibly, and he who watched 

His sorrow as a secret trust, felt not 

How every day took something from its keenness. 

He scarce remembered when he first had paused 

To listen to Francesca's pleading tones, 

Or smile when Guido with superior wisdom 

Schooled his child sister. He would linger now 

With a pleased eye before the glowing pictures 

Lining his galleries, and now the boy 

Rode forth at even by his father's side, 

And when Savella paced the palace gardens 

Francesca lay upon his breast, her arms 

Clasped on his neck, and her ungathered hair 

Sweeping the shoulder where her cheek lay pillowed. 

She had an English face, but, oh, not hers 
Whose memory yet upon Savella' s heart 
Lay, a receding shadow ! In her glance 



64 GUIDO SAVELLA. 

There was no changeful light, and her sweet mouth 

Smiled even in repose. But Guido seemed 

To visibly link the present with the past. 

For if he had his father's Roman eye, 

His lips were like his mother's, and his voice 

Had tones, like hers, unnaturally sweet. 

They told how he would steal, when sunset came 

To the deep western windows, and there sit, 

Leaning his brow upon his outspread palm, 

Even as she had done. His smile, his glance, 

The wandering gaze that seemed to fathom distance, 

The strange, deep reveries that made his life 

Shadowy like a dream, his sudden tears 

Flowing uncalled, and his unquiet gladness, — 

All this resembled her. His very step, 

Sounding along the galleries, and pausing 

Before the pictures she had loved, became 

A dread to those who listened, and Savella 

Hearing its echoes, turned away to sigh. 

Save for each other lone, surrounded ever 

By shapes of antique beauty, cherishing 

Rare birds and blossoms, with the eager care 



GUIDO SAVELLA. 65 

Of those who have few human things to love, 
The orphans grew together. 

And their childhood 
Passed, but yet slowly, for they lingered long 
In its sweet Eden, and when driven forth 
Still dwelt beneath the shadow of its trees. 
They bore their childish hearts far into youth ; 
They were alone ; and if to Guido's spirit 
Came sometimes wild hopes and ambitious thoughts, 
They left no withering traces, but sped on, 
Even as the shadow of an eagle's wing 
Darkens a sunbright valley. Lapse of years 
Wrought little change, save that Francesca's brow 
Wore the bright seal of girlhood ; that she stepped 
With its half-conscious grace, and that she curbed 
To womanly pride, the laughter that her eyes 
Betrayed, how sweetly ! Save that from his dreams 
The boy was half awaked, and as the breeze 
Is tremulous in the tree, life at his heart 
Made music. Oh, the calm of earlier days, 
To his refining senses, seemed the rest 
Of one who sleeps into an April morning 



66 GUIDO SAVELLA. 

And is awaked by melody and light ! 

Yet still as the unfolding of a flower 

His being's growth ; and to the passing eye, 

Still Guido was unchanged. For even now, 

Under the shadow of the ilex trees, 

He would lie dreaming through a summer morn, 

Freighting the slow clouds with his indolent fancies. 

Or if Francesca with her broidery frame 

Stole to his side, would idly mark the grouping 

Of leaves and flowers beneath her hand, or listen, 

An arm flung o'er his closed lids, while she sang 

Love-songs and ballads, else from some old book 

Read quaint romances, scraps of passionate verse, 

That brought the fire to his lip and eye. 

And even now, although no hand reined in 

A steed more gallantly, he better loved 

Some lone, wild path, where other steps came not, 

Than the gay Corso. Now his early dreams 

Lay closer to his soul, and he had striven 

To give their loveliness a tangible shape ; 

But youth still held in leash his fiery spirit, 

And with the will to do came not the power. 



o 


o 


GUIDO SAVELLA. 


67 


The first faint efforts of awakening strength 




Revealed in fragments of imperfect song, 





Rude shapes, and outlined scenery, on the canvass 

Left incomplete by an irresolute hand. 

All loved the boy ; the contadina turned 

To smile her salutation as he passed ; 

The beggar lounging on the palace stair 

Bade Mary bless the glorious, gifted child, 

As he went by. These loved him for his beauty, 

His pride ; for pride becomes a noble spirit 

Even as a regal port doth royalty. 

Pass we their dawn of youth. Savella's place 
Was empty at the board. The orphans dwelt 
Alone in the old palace. The rapt boy 
Had made his manhood as an arch of triumph 
Spanning a conqueror's path. There was no lip 
But named him reverently ; for his songs 
Had stirred all Italy, and to his canvass 
The gods descended. He was changed by time, 
Not less by care and toil. His step had left 
Its early pride for the calm, conscious power 



-o 



68 GUIDO SAVELLA. 

Of riper years; and there remained no trace, 
In the man's grand proportions, of the slight 
And flexible outlines of the unformed child. 
Men said his brain was overcharged with thought ; 
The blue veins branched distinctly on his temples, 
His lips had lost their fulness, and the blood 
Fled with hot haste unsummoned to his brow. 
He had grown captious, difficult, unlike 
His former self. The daylight parched him now, 
The twilight chilled, and sleep to him was fever; 
For he would wake half shrieking, and aroused, 
Steal mantled forth into the quiet streets, 
Shunning the moonbeams, starting in white fear 
From the dim, cowering midnight at the base 
Of pedestal and column. Early morn 
Found him before his easel. 

From without, 
Through the looped curtains of his studio came 
Faintly the stir of life, and far beneath, 
The garden with its fountains, and dark groves, 
And winding paths, stretched westward. The high walls 
Were white and unadorned: the vaulted ceilhijj; 



GUIDO SAVELLA. 69 

Kept step and voice with a deep roll like thunder. 
There were no draperies save those that hung 
Over the windows, and before the door 
Of a small inner room, and there, low bending, 
A statue caught back on her lifted arm 
The gathered folds, and finger laid on lip, 
Gazed in upon the artist. A Madonna, 
Over whose brow a dark blue mantle fell, 
Hung in a deep recess. 

There was a magic 
About the face — a picture may have such — 
For on its down-cast lids the gazer's heart 
Dwelt earnestly, and with a passionate wish 
To see them rise. Hour after hour, 'twas told, 
Guido stood rapt before it, and 'twas whispered 
Throughout the household, that when even came, 
And he awoke from those strange reveries 
To steal forth to the gardens, his faint step 
Scarce left its impress on the moistened sod 
Girding his favourite fountain. As a cloud 
That captures the retreating light of day, 
His eye still kept its lustre ; but quick pulses 



70 GUIDO SAVELLA. 

Glanced wavering o'er his temples, and the dew 

Came readily to his brow. He would speak low, 

Pacing alone, and sometimes in his glance 

There crouched an indistinct terror, or awhile 

He seemed to sleep, and but remembered, waking, 

A light hand in his own, soft lips that touched 

His hot veins and they cooled. But this was dreaming ; 

And when ere long Francesca came, he wound 

His arm about her waist, and with a smile 

Talked as she loved to hear him, playfully, 

Yet mingling wisdom with his sportive words ; 

Sending athwart the current of deep thought 

Fleets of grotesque, capricious fantasies, 

As boys float mimic barks across a river. 

Yet even then the delicate chain of fancy 

Would seem to snap asunder, and he sought 

Bewildered the lost links. But knowing not 

Their mother's history, she who listened deemed 

Only that constant toil had vexed his brain, 

And smiled, and soothed him, and with earnest wiles 

Chased back the gathering gloom. If now they named 

Savella's wife, his very lips turned white. 



GUIDO SAVELLA. 71 

The chamber where her portrait hung was closed, 
The key had rusted in the lock. A vail 
Hung, like a pall, before the pictured face. 

'Twas sunset, and the mellowed sound of bells, 
The lowing of worn cattle driven to drink, 
Came from the vineyards and the far Campagna. 
'Twas still in Guido's studio ; not a sound 
Rose from below, but loitered as it came. 
The echoes caged within the dome-like ceiling 
Slept upon folded wings. A picture stood 
Half finished on the easel, but the artist 
Grown weary had gone forth. 

Light steps ascended 
The marble stair, the drapery looped back 
Upon the nymph's white arm, waved, and Francesca 
Lifting its folds, passed through. The polished floor 
Imaged her feet like water as she passed ; 
She paused before the easel. On the canvass, 
New-limned, a woman in the Roman garb 
Sat by a fount and watched gray oxen drinking. 
Her hands lay clasped upon the marble rim, 



72 GUIDO SAVELLA. 

Her veiled eyes were cast down, and at her feet 
A contadino, stretched upon the grass, 
Pillowed his head upon his folded arms. 
With ripe lips dropped apart, Francesca gazed 
Smiling upon her beauty's counterpart ; 
Then with a sudden impulse, from the peasant 
Whose lids were darkly outlined on her cheek, 
Turned to the pictured Virgin, and first saw 
How like her own Madonna's features were ! 
She started, and with finger laid on lip, 
Pondered a space; then, pausing not to question 
If there were aught irreverent in her thought, 
Stepped upon tiptoe through the room, and vanished. 

The curtains were drawn close when Guido entered. 
Through their large flutes the tempered light came in 
As through a wave. Arch, wall, and glassy column 
Stood like translucent amber. Guido paused, 
Resting upon the threshold. He had risen, 
That morn to a new being ; to the sound 
Of rhythms sweeter than the mirth of brooks ; 
To the low voice of songs that thrilled for flight, 



GUIDO SAVELLA. 73 

To the light trip of dreams like trooping zephyrs. 

And every thought sang, jubilant, as it rose, 

And every dream its gossamer wings unfolding, 

Warmed in his spirit's sunshine. Like a band 

Of nymphs that dance to music, all his fancies 

Came with a twin-born melody. For rhythm 

Seemed his soul's natural language, and it flowed 

Effortless as the harmonies of a bird. 

And so the poet's day passed vision-like, 

Filled with the bright confusion of a dream. 

Now worn and fever-flushed, he would have called 

His wild thoughts to their nests, and bade sweet peace 

Descend like dew at evening. But in vain. 

Wearily crept the sunshine to his eye ; 

The fall of footsteps down the narrow street, 

Each varied tone in the great city's voice, 

Fell like a pang on nerves the lightest touch 

Now thrilled to painfulness. The windless air 

Pressed on his forehead like a steadfast hand^ 

And still resolving rest, he still thought on, 

Wearied to pain. 

The cool, half-mystical light 



74 GUIDO SAVELLA. 

Was pleasant to his senses. With bent head 
He paced the room. He looked not towards Madonna. 
With eyes cast downward steadfastly, he seemed 
To wrestle with wild thoughts. Thus for a space. 
He paused, turned suddenly, and looked up. A cry 
At his heart's threshold died. He stood transfixed, 
With lips blanched white with terror. 

What stood there, 
Within the columned niche? Madonna's picture 
Was gone, an empty frame hung in its place ! 
What stood with folded hands ? A mantle fell 
Squarely across the brow, and dark blue folds 
Trailed to the pavement ! 

Softly ! so ! the echoes 
Are listening from above ! His step scarce roused them. 
Nearer, with hushed heart ! In the uncertain light 
He thought to see it vanish, but, unchanged, 
The veiled shape stood like marble. O'er his eyes 
He passed his burning hand. Another step ! 
One more. Ah, heaven, the robe stirred on her bosom ! 
Now could he mark the rosy line dividing 



GUIDO SAVELLA. 75 

The palms together laid. His breath came fast. 
Thus stood she in his dreams ! 

Lo, the fringed lids 
Rose slowly, and eyes filled with love and laughter 
Turned to his own ! He bent, with outstretched arms. 
A smile mocked from the lip, then rapid blushes 
Burned, and grew pale, as if in terror sprang 
The veiled shape to his side, and flinging back 
The mantle, clinging to his breast, cried " Guido ! 
Dear Guido !" and in hollow echoes died 
Over the vaulted ceiling, "Guido! Guido!" 
He bent her light form backward o'er his arm, 
And looked into her face. Like a crushed serpent, 
Under his firm teeth writhed the nether lip. 
His grasp was iron. With her pleading, eyes 
She watched him silently. He flung her off, 
And, tossing a wild hand to heaven, rushed forth. 
She heard his fleet step echo through the halls, 
And shrieking followed. 

Still Savella's house 
Stands in the seven-hilled city. There, together, 



76 GUIDO SAVELLA. 

Dwell twain alone, a brother and a sister. 

These hold no revels and receive no guest. 

One is a man with vacant, wandering eyes, 

Whose face is like a boy's ; his hair's linked rings 

Pall to his bosom ; one, calm-browed and pale, 

A woman on whose laughter-moulded lip 

Joy lies asleep. Her life seems blent with his. 

She hath no thought but for her mute companion. 

And if he walks, her shoulder is his prop ; 

If he would sleep, she charms his weary lids 

With singing, or, reclining at his side, 

Under the ilex boughs, reads scraps of song 

Whose musical rhymes are pleasant to his ear, 

Their sense, alas, unheeded ! And, the while, 

He will beat slow time with his hand, or echo 

Her low words softly, as a child repeats 

Its teacher's accents. His is not the gloom 

That blinds a common mind. His soul shines forth 

Like starlight o'er the ruins of a Rome; 

Like a pale moon through tempests, sending gleams 

Over the waste of madness, and still feebly 

Ruling its tides. Still, nature hath a charm 



GUIDO SAVELLA. 77 

For his dim sense, and still unconsciously 
He freights the bird's song and the blossom's fragrance 
With his heart's rich thanksgiving. Flower and herb 
He cherishes with strange love. He will not crush 
The meanest weed that flings its pendulous spray 
Over his path — and all things gentle love him, 
From the grave hound that guards him, to the birds 
That, from low boughs, the while he flings them bounty, 
Eye him askance. His pencil still beguiles 
Long hours, grotesquely on the canvass blending 
Weird, goblin fancies with half-grasped conceptions, 
Gloriously fair. The very words he speaks 
Are chosen for their beauty, and the rhythms 
He loved, seem ever lingering on his lips. 
Thought gleams in faint Auroras, and hope calls 
Their light day's luminous herald. Oh ! the flame 
Burns low upon the altar, Memory clasps 
Her blazoned missal, and the priest-like voice 
Of Reason dies in silence ! There are heard 
No more amid her aisles fast-crowding thoughts, 
No more the noble anthems of her worship ; 
And Guido's soul is like some dim cathedral 



78 GUIDO SAVELLA. 

That keeps with faint, sweet light the hush of prayer 
After the prayer hath ceased; the breath of incense 
Burned upon shrines, the solemn, deep vibrations 
Of music that falls trembling into stillness ! 



A TRUE STORY OF A FAWN. 

Down from a mountain's craggy brow 

His homeward way a hunter took, 
By a path that wound to the vales below 

At the side of a leaping brook. 
Long and sore had his journey been, 
By the dust that clung to his forest green, 
By the stains on his broidered moccasin ; 
And over his shoulder his rifle hung, 
And pouch and horn at his girdle swung. 

The eve crept westward ; soft and pale 

The sunset poured its rosy flood 

(79) 



80 A TRUE STORY OF A FAWN. 

Slanting over the wooded vale ; 

And the "weary hunter stood 
Looking down on his cot below, 

Watching his children there at play, 
Watching the swing on the chestnut bough 

Flit to and fro through the twilight gray, 

Till the dove's nest rocked on its quivering spray. 

Faint and far through the forest wide 

Came a hunter's voice, and a hound's deep cry; 

Silence, that slept in the rocky dell, 

Scarcely waked as her sentinel 

Challenged the sound from the mountain side. 

Over the valleys the echo died, 
And a doe sprang lightly by 

And cleared the path, and panting stood 

With her trembling fawn by the leaping flood. 

She spanned the torrent at a bound, 
And swiftly onward, winged by fear, 

Fled as the cry of the deep-mouthed hound 
Fell louder on her ear: 



o- 



A TRUE STORY OF A FAWN. 81 

And pausing by the waters deep, 
Too slight to stem their rapid flow, 

Too weak to dare the perilous leap, 
The fawn sprang wildly to and fro, 
Watching the flight of her lithe-limbed doe. 



Now she hung o'er the torrent's edge 

And sobbed and wept as the waves shot by, 

Now she paused on the rocky ledge 
With head erect, and steadfast eye, 
Listening to the stag-hound's cry. 

Close from the forest the deep bay rang, 
Close in the forest the echoes died, 

And over the pathway the brown fawn sprang 
And crouched at the hunter's side. 



Deep in the thickets the boughs unclasped 
Leapt apart with a crashing sound, 

Under the lithe vines, sure and fast, 
Came on the exulting hound ; 



82 A TRUE STORY OF A FAWN. 

Yet baffled, stopped to bay and glare 
Far from the torrent's bound ; 

For the weeping fawn still crouching there 
Shrank not nor fled, but closer pressed 
And laid her head on the hunter's breast. 



THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 

A PARAPHRASE. 

Perched on a rock, a river at its base, 

Stands Castle Lahneck. 'Twas a robber's keep 

In the old time. An outlawed baron lodged 

His train of knights, and hostages grew gray, 

And victims plead and died, where limp grass waves 

Like signals from the windows, or grows rank 

Around a horrible pit digged deep beneath 

The one tall tower. 

One fair May afternoon, 

(83) 



84 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 

An English stranger with her German guide 
Trod breathlessly the difficult path that "winds 
Up to the ruined walls. The two were friends, 
And with light laughter and familiar jests 
Made the way pleasant, till they paused at last 
Under the castle's shadow, to look down 
On the blue Lahn that widens to the Rhine, 
The Rhine itself beyond, the broad, fair scene 
Outspread below. The English girl spoke first 
After long silence ; with clasped hands, and head 
Thrown back, retreating slow, and with her eye 
Measuring the lone high tower. " Oh, Margaret ! 
Eagles by daylight, and gray owls that blink 
Under the o'er-bright moon, on yon great height 
Blindly possess the wealth that would enrich 
A human soul for ever !" 

Through a maze 
Of matted shrubbery they forced a path 
Close to the ruin. A projecting wall 
Sheltered a low-arched door, that, cloaked by vines, 
And half way blocked with slippery stones, framed in 
Intensest darkness. With light, fearless tread, 



THE TOWER OF LAHNECE. 85 

Ida, the blue-eyed stranger, leading through, 
Crossed the rude threshold. Lo ! a massy stair, 
Far as the eye could follow, up the wall 
Wound to the summit ! 

They were young and gay, 
And never thought of danger. Ida first, 
They scaled the steep flight, singing as they trod 
Snatches of song. Their sweet notes filled the tower, 
Making faint tinkling echoes as they dropt 
Through its dim well of silence. Safe at last, 
They stood upon the turret roof, and looked 
Over the low broad parapet. 

While one 
With tears of joyous pride and outstretched hand, 
Hamlet and river, vale and distant mount 
Named rapidly, the other wept, oppressed 
By the vague, restless sadness that to some 
Comes linked with beauty. 

Warning shadows grew 
Long on the meadows while they talked of home, 
Minding each other of the tedious path, 



86 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 

And yet they lingered. Margaret had crept 
Close to the edge, and Ida, on her shoulder 
Resting a light hand, forward leant with looks 
Piercing the distance downward. 

A strange dread 
Thrilled each alike. Both from the parapet 
Shrank with one impulse. From the vaults beneath 
Crept a light, silent shudder. Was it time 
For the roused earth to jostle from her breast 
This sepulchre of crime? The turret rocked 
Under their feet, and a loud thunderous roar 
Rushed upward like the swift flame shot to heaven 
Out of a crater ! When it died away 
In a deep trembling, all the ruin seemed 
Alive with swarming echoes, but these dropped 
Into their nooks, and from below again 
Welled the deep silence. 

Then the German rose, 
And, tottering to the stairway, shrieked to see 
Its last rude vestige, loosened by her tread, 
Plunge through the void, and Ida, at the cry, 



Q~ 



THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 87 

Lifting her wan face, to the chasm's edge 
Stole fearfully. A black, fixed gloom half way 
Filled the deep, well-like tower ; gray threads of light 
Drawn through the ragged crevices, or caught 
On the vine branches, seemed the gossamer skein 
The spider wove from wall to wall, or spread 
Over the ivy. They who from its depths 
Withdrew their looks, each in the other's eyes 
Searching for comfort, read the sharp dismay 
Neither had spoken. 

Hiding in her soul 
One hope that like a precious perfume might 
Exhale in the disclosing, Ida crept 
Back to the turret's verge, and steadfastly 
Screening her eyes from the descending sun, 
Looked o'er the parapet. The wooded hills 
Sprinkled with sunshine, and the vales between 
Lapped in dim lovely shade, seemed overspread 
With a faint ghastliness. Except the crow 
Flapping above the forest, or the wings 
Of the fierce eagles, or the bird that flew 
Dipping along the river, nothing stirred 



o- 



88 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 

Over the landscape, and her straining gaze 
Dropped listless downward. 

Nay ! upon the path 
Tracking the mountain, some one stirred beneath, 
Slowly approaching! Both together leant 
Over the parapet, and called aloud. 
Alas ! the thin, light air refused to keep 
The burden of their voices. He, below, 
Never looked up. But could their frantic cries 
Have fathomed the deep distance, it had then 
Availed them not. For it was only Kranz, 
The deaf and dumb from Lahnstein, seeking flowers, 
To sell them at the inn. 

They watched the twilight 
As 'twere a deluge, while its flowing tides 
Flooded the valleys, and crept up the front 
Of the tall turret. Barge on barge had gone 
Down the calm river ; from the mill above 
Forth came the miller, and walked loitering, home 
Under the mountain's shadow ; peasants drove 
Their cattle from the pasture; children played 
In the near fields, and once a fisherman 



o-- 



THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 89 

Rowed through the castle's bright reflection cast 
Over the Lahn. And no one paused for them. 
The steersman had been busy at his helm, 
The miller thought of home. 

They had strayed far 
That sunny day; none in the distant town 
They left behind, knew whither, or would think 
To seek them here. 

The stars shone thick above. 
The gloom below was studded here and there 
By clustered village lights ; the firefly lit 
His lamp among the osiers. Ida still 
Crouched by the parapet, her folded arms 
Pillowing her head. She had awhile exchanged 
Her sorrow for another's, and in thought 
Mourned for her own lost self, and wearied time 
With questions of her fate. Once Margaret spoke 
Words of faint comfort, but she, looking up, 
Answered with dreary smiling, "Hope thou not, 
Unless we make, like rosy Ganymede, 
Steeds of the eagles!" Now bright floods of light 
Streamed from the windows of the Lahnstein inn 



90 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 

Over the waters. There the merry guests 
Sat quaffing Rheinwein. 

Midnight from the skies 
Swept like a solemn vision. Ere the dawn, 
A low white mist had settled on the vales, 
And all that day no traveller came to look 
At the lone ruin. They were wild with thirst, 
Faint for the lack of food, when, still as dew, 
Another eve dropt round them. Since the noon 
Margaret had stirred not, but with blank cold eyes 
Turned to the misty river, and hands locked 
Over her knee, sat patient, though aloud 
Ida wailed out, or, leaning from the tower, 
Stretched forth her arms towards the distant home 
Whence they had strayed, or, frozen by despair, 
Prostrate lay silent till dismay again 
Struck at her cowering soul. But now she rose, 
And close upon its brink, looked steadily 
Down the black chasm. From the vaults stole up 
An odour of damp earth, against the walls 
Beat the blind bats, and startled by her tread 
An owl rushed upward with its boding scream, 



THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 91 

And wheeling round the tower, fled fast and far 

Toward the Black Forest. Whether she had leant 

Over the gulf too hardily, and, scared 

By the near flight of that unholy bird, 

Swerved and stepped falsely, whether desperate fear 

Then fixed the wavering purpose in her soul 

God saw, but Ida, starting at a shriek 

That drowned the owl's hoot, only looked to know 

She was alone. 

What desolate hours were hers, 
Who knelt down in the starlight, stretching forth, 
Her shuddering arms to Heaven, and from that time 
Patiently suffered ! 

Was she saved at last ? 
What say the bargemen floating down the Lahn, 
The boatmen at the Ferry, to and fro 
Hourly plying, or the rustic groups 
That loiter as they pass ? To their belief, 
Since from its heights the robber baron swept 
With his hawk's eye the valleys, never foot 
Has trod the ruined summit. Only, once, 
Albert, the fisher, resting on his oar 



92 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 

After the day's toil, marvelled to discern 
A wild she-eagle, wheeling from the clouds, 
Sit screaming to her mate with outspread wings 
Where the red sunset crowns the Tower of Lahneck ! 



THE CHAPLET OF BRONZE. 

" Oh, could I melt my spirit into song 

And dying triumph !" The slow silvery notes 

Rose from her lips as smoke rings from a censer. 

Gay dames and gallants whispered, the young nobles 

Stood with averted eyes, and the rude crowd 

Aped their indifference. Holding with her looks 

The scorn that coiled to spring, she sang, and drave 

Melody to the utmost bounds of sound, 

Marcia, the Florentine. The orchestra 

Pealed forth its loudest, but triumphantly 

As the white sea-bird skims the waves, her voice 

Outrode the storm of music. 

Suddenly, 

(93) 



94 THE CHAPLET OF BRONZE. 

A note shot upward, and suspended hung 

As if on poised wings. A single voice 

Cried "Bravo!" as slow dropped from that great height 

It seemed to fathom silence. Then upborne 

By music, like a bird that's swung to rest 

By the lulled waves, the singer's voice kept on 

Swelling and falling with the sound that bare it. 

Low bent the lover to his lady's ear, 

And she sat trifling with her gilded fan. 

All through the indifferent crowd, above, below, 

Only averted faces met her eye 

Who had been wont to hold the multitude 

By her sweet voice as in a silver leash. 

With scarce a bend of her white neck she turned 

And passed out from their sight. 

The painted curtain 
Swept to the footlamps, and the orchestra 
Thundered again. But to and fro the crowd 
Swayed with mute restlessness. Some one cried out 
" Amalia !" and a thousand voices joined, 
"Amalia!" to the gilded ceiling, slow, 
Crept back the screen of drapery. 



THE CHAPLET OF BRONZE. 95 

There were fountains. 
Green groves, and arbours, in the scene before them, 
With what seemed moonlight shimmering over all. 
And through one avenue that pierced the distance 
A single note came floating. 

'Twas a child 
That, up the aisle advancing, to the footlamps 
Drew near, and with her hands locked carelessly 
Sang with a fearless joyfulness. Her voice 
Was fresh as May-winds, wilder than the lark 
That swoops and circles in its upward flight, 
Delirious with music. Scarce the ear 
Marked how through labyrinths of song it held 
One clue of melody; its notes like pearls 
Strung on the silken thread they half concealed. 
Her voice was but the sail her happy spirit 
Urged to its utmost through the waves of song ; 
When Marcia sang, each silver arrow sped 
True to the mark, but these seemed flung at random ; 
No bird that sings amid the summer leaves 
E'er voiced his spirit with such deep delight ; 
And when she ceased, and the loud orchestra 



9(3 THE CHAPLET OF BRONZE. 

Took up the strain, the multitude o'erwhelmed it 
With a continuous thunder. 

Soft, a voice ! 
And through the distant scenery came a form 
That paused midway, and with white, lifted arms 
Held up what seemed a crown of woven leaves. 
Then "Marcia! Marcia !" fled from lip to lip, 
And with the tempest of her shouted name 
The high walls trembled. Her magnificent head 
Bent to the crowd's applauses, as the prow 
Of some grand vessel sinks to meet the waves; 
And lifting high the wreath, she cried, " Come hither ! 
Hither, Amalia !" 

With meek folded arms, 
Low bent the singer. 

Yet suspended hung 
Over her brow the fatal type of fame, 
The laurel crown, till Marcia smiled. It fell, — 
Not fluttering slow, but with a sudden quickness, 
And as it dropped, loud thunders of applause 
Blent with the crash of music. Some stood still ; 
For through the tumult a prolonged wild shriek 



THE CHAPLET OF BRONZE. 97 

Rose, faintly audible. 'Twas but a fancy ! 
Still Marcia smiled, and still Amalia bent. 
The smile seemed graven upon Marcia's lip. 
And now Amalia, sinking to her knee, 
Bent lower, lower, lower, till her brow 
Pressed down the border of the robes that swept 
From Marcia's zone, and Marcia had no rival ! 



JULIETTE. 

Where the rough crags lift, and the sea-mews call, 
Yet frowns Earl Hubert's castle tall, 
Close at the base of its western Avail 

The chafed waves stand at bay ; 
And the May-rose twined in its banquet hall 

Dips to the showering spray. 
For the May-rose springs, and the ivy clings, 

And the wall-flower flaunts in the ruined bower, 
And the sea-bird foldeth her weary wings 

Up in the stone-gray tower ; 

Scaling an arch of the postern rude 

A wild vine drops to the water's flow, 

(98) 




- 






JULIETTE. 99 

Deep in the niches the blind owls brood, 

And the fringing moss hangs low, 
Where stout Earl Hubert's banner stood 

Five hundred years ago ! 

Out from the castle's western wall 
Jutteth a tower round and tall, 
And leading up to the parapet 

By a winding turret stair, 
Over the sea there looketh yet 

A chamber small and square, 
Where the faint daylight comes in alone 
Through a narrow slit in the solid stone ; 

And here, old records say, 
Earl Hubert bore his wayward child 

From courts and gallants gay ; 
That, guarded by the breakers wild, 

And cloistered from her lover's arms, 
Here might she mourn her wasted charms, 

Here weep her youth away. 

" One ! two !" said the sentinel, 

Watching the night from the eastern tower. 



100 JULIETTE. 

Up in the turret a solemn knell 

Tolled for the parting hour; 
Over the ocean its echo fell, 
One ! two ! — like a silver bell 

Chiming afar in the sea-nymph's bower. 



Shrill and loud was the sea-bird's cry, 

The watch-dog bayed as the moon rose high, 

The great waves swelled below ; 
And the measured plash of a dipping oar 
Broke softly through their constant roar, 

And paused beneath the shade 
Flung westward by that turret hoar 

Where slept the prisoned maid. 
The sentinel paced to and fro 

Under the castle parapet, 

But, in her chamber, Juliette 
Heard not the tramp of his clanging foot, 

Nor the watch-dog baying near : 
Only the sound of a low-toned lute 

Stole to her dreaming ear. 

6 ■ 



JULIETTE. 101 

The moon rode up as the night wore on, 

Looking down with a blinding glare 
Into that chamber still and lone, 
Touching the rough-hewn cross of stone, 

And the prayer beads glittering there; 

The loosened waves of the sleeper's hair, 

And the curve of her shoulder, white and bare. 



She dreamed ! she dreamed ! that dreary keep 

Melted away in the calm- moonbeams ; 
The sea-bird's call and the wave's hoarse sweep, 
Changed for the lull of a forest deep, 

And the pleasant voice of streams. 
She seemed, at rest by a mossy stone, 
To watch the blood-red sun go down, 
And hang on the verge of the horizon 

Like a ruby set in a golden ring; 

To hear the wild birds sing 
Up in the larch boughs, loud and sweet, 
Over a turf where the soft waves beat 
With a sound like a naiad's dancing feet. 



102 JULIETTE. 

For here and there on its winding way 

Down by dingle and shady nook, 
Under the white thorn's dropping spray 

Glittered the thread of a slender brook, 
And scarce a roebuck's leap beyond, 
Close to the brink of its grassy bound, 
She heard her lover's chiding hound, 

His bugle's merry play. 
Oh, it was sweet again to be 

Under the free blue skies ! 
She turned on her pillow restlessly, 

And the tears to her sleeping eyes 
Came welling up, as the full drops start 
At spring's first smile from a fountain's heart. 

Up rose the maid in her dreamy rest. 
And flung a robe o'er her shoulders bare, 
And gathered the threads of her floating hair, 
Ere, with a foot on the turret stair 
She paused, then onward pressed, 
As the tones of a soft lute broke again 
Through the deeper chords of the voiceful main. 



o- 



JULIETTE. 103 

Steep and rude was the perilous way, 

Through loopholes square and small 
The night looked into the turret gray, 

And over the massive wall 
In blocks of light the moonbeams lay, 
But the changeful ghosts of the showering spray, 
And the measured play of the waters dim 
Rippled and glanced on the ceiling grim. 

The moon looked into her sleeping eyes, 

The night wind stirred her hair ; 
And wandering blindly, Juliette, 
Close on the verge of the parapet, 

Stood without in the open air. 
Under the blue arch of the skies, 

Save for the pacing sentinel, 

Save for the ocean's constant swell, 
There seemed astir no earthly thing. 

Below, the great waves rose and fell, 

Scaling ever their craggy bound, 
But scarce a zephyr's dipping wing 

Broke the silver crust of the sea beyond ; 



104 JULIETTE. 

And in her life-like dream, 
The maiden now had wandered on 
To the brink of a slender stream, 
Then pausing, stayed her eager foot, 

For with the brook's sweet monotone 
Mingled the soft voice of a lute, 
And where the level sunbeams played 
Over the lap of a lawny glade, 
A hound lay sleeping in the shade. 



Rocked by the light waves to and fro, 

Scarcely an arrow's flight from shore, 
Her lover in his bark below 

Paused, resting on the oar, 
Watching the foam wreaths dash and fall 
Like shattered stars from the castle wall. 

As higher yet he raised his eyes, 
Jesu ! he started with affright ; 

For, painted on the midnight skies, 
Seemed hovering in the tremulous light 
A figure small, and angel white ! 



JULIETTE. 105 



Against the east lay far and dim, 

Touched by the moon's uncertain ray, 

The airy form, the turret grim. 

Doubtful he paused a minute's space ; 

Then rowed towards the castle's base, 
But checked his oar midway, 

And gazing up at the parapet, 

Shouted the one word, "Juliette!" 

Lute, baying hound, and restless deep, 

Each gave the clue bewildered thought 
Had followed through the maze of sleep, 
And, by her lulled ear faintly caught, 
Her lover's voice its echo wrought. 
She heard him call, she saw him stand 
With smiling lip and beckoning hand, 
And closer pressed, and, dreaming yet, 

From the green margin of the stream, 
From the steep verge of the parapet, 

Sprang forward with a scream ! 
Then once again the deep bell tolled 
Up in the turret gray and old, 



106 JULIETTE. 

And mingled with its lingering knell, 

The echoed cry, half-heard, half-lost, 
Startled the weary sentinel 

Now slumbering at his post. 
But wakened from his dreamful rest, 

He deemed the sound some wandering ghost 
Haunting the shades of sleep ; 
For like a bird upon its nest 

The hushed air brooded o'er the deep, 
And to his drowsy ear there crept 

Only the voice of the choral waves, 
Only the drip of the spray that wept, 

And the ripples that sang through the weedy caves. 
Nor marked he, ere again he slept, 
The muffled dip of a hasty oar, 
A steed's quick tramp along the shore. 
When morning came, a shallop's keel 

Grated the edge of the pebbly strand; 
A maid's small foot, and a knight's armed heel 

Were traced upon the sand. 



PRAYER. 

I have a thought of one who drawing close 

Over her brow the sackloth, in its folds 

Crouched, shutting out from her refusing eyes 

God's gift of sunshine. While the all-pitying skies 

Wooed her with light she would not look upon, 

While earth entreated her, and passing winds 

Plucked at her garments, and around her flung 

Invisible arms, light, urgent, clasping arms, 

Her heart made answer : — I have lain so long 

On thy cold breast, Despair, did I arise 

I should reel wildly, staggering with cramped limbs 

(107) 



108 PRAYER. 

Through the white, glaring sunshine. Hide me, night ! 

Lest the full glories of the universe 

Smite me with blindness, and exulting earth 

Under the blue triumphal arch of heaven 

Victoriously passing, blast my sense 

With her insulting gladness. Once I prayed; 

Once when dismay, want, death, pressed me so close, 

I faced them in mere madness, and beholding, 

From mine appalled soul sent up a shriek 

That must have pierced the hollow ear of space, 

Startling the angels, holding in suspense 

Awhile the eternal harmonies. Vain heart ! 

Could the mute prayer that on its fiery track 

Followed in trembling haste, prevail so far? 

Amid the roll of twice ten thousand harps 

Struck by white-handed seraphim, the voice 

Of that unfathomed sea of human woe 

Making perpetual moan about His throne, 

And surging to His footstool, dost thou dream 

That its weak cry rose audibly ? 

Did sleep 
On her imploring senses lightly rest 



o- 



PRAYER. 109 

His hand in benediction ? The still air 

To her astonished gaze grew all instinct, 

Moted with airy forms for ever drawn 

Up, by some genial influence. With bent heads, 

With hands clasped mutely, and looks downward dropt, 

Else searching space, onward they pressed, and drew 

Her rapt soul with them. Tears and sighs fell thick, 

Mixed with low broken murmurs, and a sound, 

Distinct, of music that flowed clearly on, 

Like a glad singing stream that lifts its voice 

Amid the mourning of sere autumn boughs 

Bent with wet leaves and rain. The dense, dull air, 

As 'twere a vail, they parted, and it lay 

Above the earth like the dusk cloud that hangs 

Over some populous mart. And upward still 

Through that black space, of which the hue of night 

Is a pale mock ! And she who fled with them, 

Whither, she questioned not, from that great height 

Back glancing, saw the universe as one 

Who, looking from a mountain top, beholds 

Faint clustering lights, that, twinkling through the gloom, 

Mark where a city stands. And upward still ! 



110 PRAYER 

Till through the cloaking dark a sword of light 

Flashed suddenly. Then over and around, 

There shined the brightness of ten thousand suns 

All concentrate, and her scared spirit stood 

In the full courts of heaven ! She might not look 

On its great glory, but the Seraphim 

That leant upon their harps, forever there 

Turned with bright solemn faces, lost, transfused 

Into one rapturous thought. She only saw 

How all the assembled prayers of all the worlds 

Entreated, silent. Various their guise ; 

Some with pure eyes uplift, that dared to look 

Straight on Divinity, and some with dust 

On their pale foreheads. There were infant prayers 

Crowned with faint halos ; saintly prayers, that might, 

But for some traces of forgotten tears, 

Have swelled the ranks of Heaven. While yet she 

looked, 
On the pale shore of light there stood a Form 
Forlorn, close mantled, that with tottering steps 
Drew nearer. Hers ! she knew it well ! her heart 
Shrank with a deadly fear. Oh God ! the prayer 



PRAYEE. Ill 

That on the steps of the mad shriek that bore 
Woe, horror, and defiance up to Heaven, 
Followed with faint entreaty! That weak cry, 
That mute despairing thing that from her heart 
Scarce struggled to her lips, and there fell prone 
As one across a threshold ! Staggering on 
With its pale hands uplift, closer it drew; 
And, while she looked to see it thrust without 
Into surrounding darkness, rapt and calm 
Stood the ranked angels. Near, oh God, it came ! 
Then with the mien of her who touched His robe 
When the crowd pressed Him, springing to the throne, 
With a low cry fell prostrate ! 

In their sheaths 
Why slept the keen swords of the cherubim? 
Lo, every knee was bowed ! round every brow 
There bloomed fresh amaranth, from every lip 
Burst such transcendent melody, the stars 
Grew musical with its echoes, and dull earth 
Dreamed of it in her slumber. Last of all 
Rose that pale Form, and cast the mantle back, 



112 PRAYER. 

And drank in the pure light with steadfast eyes, 
And showed God's seal, that, stamped upon its brow, 
Burned like a star. 

There was great joy in Heaven. 



THEODORA. 

Since we know her for an angel 

Bearing meek the common load, 
Let us call her, Theodora, 
Gift of God ! 



Still so young that every summer 

Is a rose upon her brow, 
All her days are blooms detaching 
From a bough. 



(113) 



114 THEODORA. 

She is very slight, and graceful 

As the bending of a fern, 
As the marble figure drooping 
O'er an urn. 



In her eyes are tranquil shadows 
Lofty thoughts alone can make, 
Like the darkness thrown by mountains 
O'er a lake. 



If you speak, the slow returning 

Of her spirit from afar 
To their depths, is like the advent 
Of a star. 



No one marvels at her beauty ; 
Blended with a perfect whole, 
Beauty seems the just expression 
Of her soul. 



THEODORA. 115 



For her lightest word or fancy, 

Unarrayed for human ear, 
Might be echoed by an angel 
Watching near. 



Be a theme however homely, 

It is glorious at her will. 
Like a common air transfigured 
By a master's skill. 



And her words, severely simple 

As a drapery Grecian-wrought, 
Show the clear symmetric outline 
Of her thought. 



To disguise her limbs with grandeur 
Would seem strange as to dispose 
Gold and velvet round a statue's 
Pale repose. 



116 



THEODORA. 



But a robe of simplest texture 

Should be gathered to her throat, 
And her rippled locks part braided, 
Part afloat. 



While a pendent spray of lilies 

In their folds should be arrayed, 
Or a waxen white camelia 
Lamp their shade. 



EOLIE. 

Oh, you are welcome as the dew 

To the worn feet of pilgrim day ; 
And wild and fresh, as flowers that keep 

The virgin bloom and breath of May. 
Yet wilful as a hawk set free 

Ere whistle lure, or huntsman tame her. 
Capricious as the bridal smile 

Spring half denies the skies that claim her, 
You've slept since morning, unbetrayed 

By waving grass or whispering tree, 

You're loitering now through grove and glade ; 

Wild Eolie ! 

M (117) 



118 EOLIE. 

Oh, we were playmates long ago ! 

And then I chased your flying feet 
Over the brave rock-terraced hills, 

Over the valleys, green and sweet. 
Your kisses woke me if I slept 

Where boughs unclasp, and shadows play, 
And, starting from my childish dreams, 

I heard your low laugh far away. 
Most gentle in your wily mirth, 

Yet elfin, half, you seemed to me, 
I loved you more than I can tell, 
Wild Eolie ! 



I love you still ; when even comes 

I hear you tread my chamber floor ; 
You sweep aside my curtain's fold, 

And turn the page I linger o'er. 
For sunset is our trysting time ; 

Our tryst we keep till stars convene, 
Till, Thetis-like, from deeps of blue 

Upwends the silver-footed queen. 



EOLIE. 119 

Breaking the crystal calm of night, 

As light wings break a glassy sea, 
Your low voice hymns me to my rest, 
Wild Eolie! 

When through the heaven's serenest blue 

Move car-like clouds with lingering flight, 
I image you a nymph like those 

That urge the shell of Amphitrite. 
At morn you are a huntress fleet, 

And, cloistered from the heats of noon, 
You seem at night a sister pale, 

Low chanting to the haloed moon. 
By morn, and noon, and saintly night, 

I image what I cannot see ; 
And give your elfin tones a soul, 
Wild Eolie ! 



SUMMER. 

The early spring hath gone ; I see her stand 

Afar off on the hills, white clouds, like doves, 

Yoked by the south wind to her opal ear, 

And at her feet a lion and a lamb 

Couched, side by side. Irresolute spring hath gone ! 

And summer comes like Psyche, zephyr-borne 

To her sweet land of pleasures. 

She is here! 
Amid the distant vales she tarried long, 
But she hath come, oh joy ! — for I have heard 

Her many-chorded harp the livelong day 

(120) 



SUMMER. 121 

Sounding from plains and meadows, where, of late, 

Rattled the hail's sharp arrows, and where came 

The wild north wind careering like a steed 

Unconscious of the rein. She hath gone forth 

Into the forest, and its poised leaves 

Are platformed for the zephyr's dancing feet. 

Under its green pavilions she hath reared 

Most beautiful things ; the spring's pale orphans lie 

Sheltered upon her breast ; the bird's loud song 

At morn outsoars his pinion, and when waves 

Put on night's silver harness, the still air 

Is musical with soft tones. She hath baptized 

Earth with her joyful weeping. She hath blessed 

All that do rest beneath the wing of Heaven, 

And all that hail its smile. Her ministry 

Is typical of love. She hath disdained 

No gentle office, but doth bend to twine 

The grape's light tendrils, and to pluck apart 

The heart-leaves of the rose. She doth not pass 

Unmindful the bruised vine, nor scorn to lift 

The trodden weed; and when her lowlier children 

Faint by the way-side like worn passengers, 



122 SUMMER. 

She is a gentle mother, all night long 
Bathing their pale brows with her healing dews. 
The hours are spendthrifts of her wealth ; the days 
Are dowered with her beauty. 

Priestess ! queen ! 
Amid the ruined temples of the wood, 
She hath rebuilt her altars, and called back 
The scattered choristers, and over aisles 
Where the slant sunshine like a curious stranger 
Glided through arches and bare choirs, hath spread 
A roof magnificent. She hath awaked 
Her oracle, that, dumb and paralyzed, 
Slept with the torpid serpents of the lightning, 
Bidding his dread voice, nature's mightiest, 
Speak mystically of all hidden things 
To the attentive spirit. 

There is laid 
No knife upon her sacrificial altar, 
And from her lips there comes no pealing triumph ; 
But to those crystal halls where silence sits 



SUMMER. 123 

Enchanted, hath arisen a mingled strain 
Of music, delicate as the breath of buds, 
And on her shrines the virgin hours lay 
Odours and exquisite dyes, like gifts that kings 
Send from the spicy gardens of the East. 



LADY CLARE. 

I'll drink a blithe bridal to you, Lady Clare, 

Ere the priest dons his gown and the marriage-bells 
call ; 
While the bridemaidens ravel the snood from your hair, 

And the bridegroom stands waiting your step in the 
hall! 
I scorn you nor mourn you, nor praise nor reprove, 
I drink to the lips that first wiled me to love ; 
But the lute of your love-tones no dearer shall be 

Than the bound of the stag down the craggy ravine, 
The cry of my sleuth hound, my horn winded free, 

Upstarting the doe from her covert of green 
The hawk you've unhooded plumes wing for the air : 
I drink a blithe bridal to you, Lady Clare ! 

(124) 



LADY CLARE. 125 

Gray clings the mist to the river ; the cloud 

That trails from the mountain is black as despair ; 
Your bird keeps its perch, and your hound whines aloud, 

And the ravens croak out from the wood, Lady Clare ! 
Faint o'er the pavement the daylight is thrown 
'Mid columns and arches, through doorways of stone ; 
Faint on the walls, and the hunting-knives laid 

On antlers suspended, scarce shown through the gloom ; 
On the staghounds that crouch in the caverns of shade, 

And the bridegroom that plays with the fringe of his 
plume, 
And the guests that stand grouped at the foot of the 

stair, 
While I drink a blithe bridal to you, Lady Clare ! 

Your glance may be warm, and your lips may be 
sweet, 

But I'd rather be out where the doe makes her lair, 
With my gun on my arm, and my dog at my feet, 

Than stand at the altar with you, Lady Clare ! 
My heart you unleashed as your snood you unwound, 
But I'll keep for a love-link one ringlet it bound. 



--o 



126 LADY CLARE. 

I'll keep, for a love-link of days when I blessed 
The breeze that your tresses had chased as it fanned, 

The hawk on your glove, or the steed you caressed, 
Or the greyhound that fawned at the touch of your 
hand — 

I'll keep for a love-link one lock of your hair, 

And I'll drink a blithe bridal to you, Lady Clare ! 

I'll mind me no more how we wandered till night 

Where the rowan tree rocks in the wild mountain air ; 
When your words fell as soft, and your foot fell as light 

As a leaf that is loosed from the bough, Lady Clare ! 
And you smiled, and you wept, while we lingered alone, 
As a flower keeps waving from shadow to sun. 
Oh ! dear were the love-words you whispered the while, 

And your weeping, if sad, and your smiling, if gay ! 
Oh! false were your love-words, and false was your 
smile, 

And false are the vows you must utter to-day ! 
As a dame casts her hawk, I will rid me of care, 
While I drink a blithe bridal to you, Lady Clare ! 



STORM AT TWILIGHT. 

The roar of a chafed lion in his lair 
Begirt by levelled spears ! A sudden flash, 
Intense, yet wavering, like a beast's fierce eye 
Searching the darkness. The wild bay of winds 
Sweeps the burnt plains of heaven, and from afar, 
Linked clouds are riding up like eager horsemen, 
Javelin in hand. From the moth wings of twilight 
There falls unwonted shadow, and strange gloom 
Cloisters the unwilling stars. The sky is roofed 
With tempest, and the moon's scant rays fall through 
Like light let dimly through the fissured rock 

Vaulting a cavern. To the horizon, 

(127) 



128 STORM AT TWILIGHT. 

The green sea of the forest has rolled back 

Its levelled billows, and where mast-like trees 

Sway to its bosom, here and there, a vine 

Braced to some pine's bare shaft, clings, rocked aloft 

Like a bold mariner ! There is no bough 

But lifteth an appealing arm to heaven. 

The scudding grass is shivering as it flies, 

And herbs and flowers crouch to their mother earth 

Like frightened children. 'Tis more terrible, 

When the near thunder speaks, and the fleet wind 

Stops like a steed that knows his rider's voice ; 

For, oh, the hush that follows is the calm 

Of a despairing heart, and, as a maniac 

Loses his grief in raving, the mad storm, 

"Weeping fast tears, awakens with a sob 

From its blank desolation, and shrieks on ! 



THE COLOURING OF HAPPINESS. 

My heart is full of prayer and praise to-day, 

So beautiful the whole world seems to me ! 

I know the morn has dawned as is its wont, 

I know the breeze comes on no lighter wing, 

I know the brook chimed yesterday that same 

Melodious call to my unanswering thought; 

But I look forth with new created eyes, 

And soul and sense seem linked and thrill alike, 

And things familiar have unusual grown, 

Taking my spirit with a fair surprise ! 

(129) 



130 THE COLOURING OF HAPPINESS. 

But yesterday, and life seemed tented round 
With idle sadness. Not a bird sang out 
But with a mournful meaning ; not a cloud, 
And there were many, but in flitting past 
Trailed somewhat of its darkness o'er my heart, 
And loitering, half-becalmed, unfreighted all, 
Went by the Heaven-bound hours. 

But oh ! to-day 
Lie all harmonious and lovely things 
Close to my spirit, and awhile it seems 
As if the blue sky were enough of Heaven ! 
My thoughts are like tense chords that give their music 
At a chance breath ; a thousand delicate hands 
Are harping on my soul ! no sight, no sound 
But stirs me to the keenest sense of pleasure — 
Be it no more than the wind's cautious tread, 
The swaying of a shadow, or a bough, 
Or a dove's flight across the silent sky. 

Oh, in this sunbright sabbath of the heart, 

How many a prayer puts on the guise of thought, 

An angel unconfessecl! Its rapid feet, 



6— 



THE COLOURING OF HAPPINESS. 131 

That leave no print on memory's sands, tread not 
Less surely their bright path than choral hymns 
And litanies. I know the praise of worlds, 
And the soul's unvoiced homage, both arise 
Distinctly to His ear who holds all nature 
Pavilioned by His presence ; who has fashioned 
With an impartial care, alike the star 
That keeps unpiloted its airy circle, 
And the sun-quickened germ, or the poor moss 
The building swallow plucks to line her nest. 



THE PALACE OP ECHOES. 

So tall the cloud-hung turrets rise, 
They seem to pierce the secret skies, 
And they who tread their heights declare 
That angel forms are sentries there. 



And rippling to the palace door, 

A dull, deep wave flows evermore, 

For they who pass, and they who come, 

Must leap or swim those waters dumb. 

(132) 



THE PALACE OF ECHOES. 133 

Within the portals dark and grand, 
Stands silence with uplifted hand, 
And wakeful echoes, biding there, 
Keep watch beside the palace stair. 



Strange fancies paint the ceilings dim 
A lamb, a stag, a lion grim, 
Are by a blindfold maiden led, 
Held in a chain of poppies red. 



Above, through chambers vast and high 
Tread lightly still, for echoes shy 
Wheel fluttering at the rash footfall, 
Like bird and bat from roof and wall. 



There where the deep-browed windows rise, 
The masquing light of noonday skies 
Through many a stained and clouded pane 
Drops in a faint prismatic rain. 



134 THE PALACE OF ECHOES. 

Mantled and dumb, a ghostly rout 
Wheels through the chambers, in and out; 
Now in the cumbrous robes of sadness, 
Now crowned, and flushed with festal madness. 



Tread light above the sounding floors, 
Along the dark, still corridors, 
For they whose look is death, 'tis said, 
Lie chained below in dungeons dread. 



No daybeam breaks the purple gloom 
That shrouds and fills yon inner room. 
Dropt from the lintel to the floor, 
Thick draperies cloak the low-arched door. 



With veiled brows, a spectral band, 
Within, a few pale masquers stand ; 
Echoes that haunt the palace halls 
Beat with faint wings the outer walls. 



o- 



THE PALACE OF ECHOES. 135 

Paler than stars that front the day, 
One silver cresset wastes away ; 
A marble naiad, fair and dim, 
Keeps watch beside a fountain's brim. 



THE BROWN MANTLE. 

Write thee her history ? why, dear friend, I weave 

Always a new one. That of yesterday 

To-day seems trite. Some varying of my mood, 

Some chance-thrown light upon the picture caught, 

Still makes me question if I read aright 

The limner's meaning. I can only guess 

That not in grief or guilt her soul is drawn 

Through her raised eyes towards Heaven. Too ripe 

a hue 

Crimsons the passionate fulness of her lip ; 

The black profusion of her rippled hair 

Caught backward from a cheek too rosy clear. 

(136) 



THE BROWN MANTLE. 



137 



She hath been leaning o'er the saintly book 
Her clasped hands rest upon, for one rich lock 
Hath parted from the mass, across her brow 
Pencilling its shadow. You would never guess 
Her state from her arraying, at her throat 
The sad-hued mantle with its falling hood 
Close gathered. Best of all I love her eyes ; 
I'd have no change in them. I would not see 
Even the angel presence of a smile 
Troubling their darkness. 

Was she good as fair? 
How thinkest thou? are not her very looks 
Teachers of purity ? was she high-born ? 
Young, lovely, noble, did she give to God 
The blossom of her nature ? She hath dwelt 
Where the Seine wanders. Canst thou image her 
A peasant, loitering through the vintage fields, 
Binding her brows with grape leaves; else, apart 
Weaving fresh chaplets. For she hath been wont 
To kneel at Romish altars, and I know 
Under the brown folds of her cloak you'd find 
Beads and a crucifix. Peasant or queen, 



138 THE BROWN MANTLE. 

I'll think of her as one whose lightest -word 
Angels heard unrebuking ; whose pure heart 
Turned from impurity like a flower that shuts 
At the approach of night. 

Ah, be content ! 
I would not know her history if I could. 



A SONG FOR AUTUMN. 

Frighten the bird from the tasselled pine, 

Where he sings like a hope in a gloomy breast; 

Tread down the blossoms that cling to the vine, 
Winnow the blooms from the mountain's crest ! 

Let the balm-flower sleep where the small brooks twine, 

And the golden-rod treasure the yellow sunshine. 

Muffle the bells of the faint-lipped waves, 

Let the red leaves fall. Let the brown fawn leap 

Through the golden fern. In the weedy caves 
Let the snake coil up for his winter sleep ; 

Let the ringecl-snake coil where the earth is drear, 

Like a grief that grows cold as the heart grows sere ! 

(139) 



140 A SONG FOR AUTUMN. 

Pluck down the rainbow; make steadfast the throne 
Of the star that was faint in the summer night ! 

Let the white daughters of wave and sun 
Weep as they cloister the pale, pale light. 

Let the mist-wreaths brood o'er the valley-bound rills, 

And the sky trail its mantle far over the hills. 

Plunder the wrecks of the forest, and blind 
The waters that picture its ruinous dome ! 

Wildly, oh, wildly, most sorrowful wind, 
Chant, like a prophet, of terror to come ! 

Like a Niobe stricken with infinite dread, 

Leave the spirit of beauty alone with her dead. 

Throne the pale Naiad that fillcth her urn 

At the fount of the sun ; on the curtain of night, 

Paint wild Auroras like visions that burn, 
Rosy Auroras like dreams of delight ! 

Mantle the earth, fold the robe o'er her breast, 

While the sky, like a seraph, bends over her rest ! 



UNREST. 

Rest for awhile ! I'm tempest-tost to-day. 

Bar out the sunshine. Let importunate life 

Beating for ever with impatient hand 

My soul's closed portals, only rouse within 

Dull, dreamy echoes ! In a forest calm 

Builds sleep, the white dove. As a bird she rides 

The lulled waves of the soul. To-day, my thoughts 

Hunt me like hounds ; the very prayer for peace 

Scares peace away; my senses, wide awake, 

Watch for the touch that thrills them : every sound 

Falls through the listening air unscabbarded ; 

And if sleep comes, 'tis but a transient dream 

p (141) 



142 UNREST. 

That flits betwixt me and the light of life, 
Alighting never. 

Oh, sweet chrism of God! 
Oh, balm and oil by Heaven's white ministers 
Laid with a blessing on the gates of sense ! 
Baptismal font from whence our bodies rise 
Regenerate ! cool, way-side shadow flung 
Over the paths of toil ! I am athirst, 
Fevered and weary of my own worn self; 
Strengthen me with thy strength ! 

Lo, where she stands, 
Sleep, the beloved, and mocks me with her beauty ! 
Her hands lie clasped around a lamp alight 
Burning faint incense ; from her zone unbound 
Dark folds trail silently; the poppies wreathed 
Above her temples, bursting, over-ripe, 
Drop with her motion. She is fair and calm, 
And dreams, like cherubs, with bright restless wings 
Cling to her sweeping robes. Let her draw near, 
Laying her dewy lips upon my brow, 
Twining me with soft movement in her arms, 
And there shall pass a fluttering through my sense, 



o- 



UNREST. 



143 



Leaf-like vibration, and my soul, as one 

Who drifts out seaward, seeing the dim shore 

Receding slow, hearing the voice of waves 

Call to him fainter, shall float guideless on, 

Rocked into slumber; dream effacing dream, 

Thought widening around thought, till all grows vague. 



o— 



A WINTER NIGHT'S THOUGHT. 

Hark to the -wind ! The snow falls fast to-night. 
By morn, all down the road-sides 'twill lie blown 
In beautiful shapes and curves. Against the panes 
It has lodged heavily. 

How many suns 
Since last, at dawn, I heard the gay south-west 
Come piping up the vales, one little cloud 
Borne on its bosom as a shepherd bears 
The youngling of the flock ? 

From out this mad 
Contending of blent voices, Fancy calls 

Shapes of a ruder mould. To-night, believe, 

(144) 



o— 



A WINTER NIGHT'S THOUGHT. 145 

Some wild-eyed maniac, with uncertain steps, - 

Paces these barren hill-sides. Now, her cry 

Comes stifled from the hollows. Now, she shrieks 

On the bare rising ground, while high-pitched tones 

Make answer, far and shrill, as if the fiends, 

Mocking her sense, grew audible to us ; 

And now — Heaven guard us ! — her approaching steps 

Sound close beneath the walls, while, each in turn, 

The barred doors shake as if some skeleton hand 

Rattled against the locks, the windows thrill; 

So human grows the moaning voice without, 

That, glancing sidelong where the curtains part, 

One looks to see some blood-forsaken face 

Pressed to the pane. Anon blank silence falls, 

And you believe this wandering thing stands still, 

Held by a thread of reason; till, far off, 

Along the dells there runs an undertone 

Of low, melodious laughter, like soft keys 

Linked by a flying hand, and forest pines, 

Crossed by the harsh chords of the bare, brown boughs, 

Prelude their stormy music with a thrill 

Like that deep trembling when the organ first 



146 A WINTER NIGHT'S THOUGHT. 

Stirs in a vast cathedral. Oh then, roused, 
Struck by some ambushed thought, she shrieks again 
Sudden and sharp, this tenant of the night ! 
And hurries through the storm with broken cries, 
Or, crouching to the walls, finds shelter there, 
Or, in a sore dismay, upon the earth 
Dashed headlong, sobs complaining, or in vain 
Seeks refuge for her madness and her woe 
In the white crumbling sepulchres she treads ! 



COUNT JULIO. 

Mid halls beneath whose fretted cornices 

Echo still babbles of a glorious past, 

Dwelt Julio the miser. 

Nobly born, 

Reared among palaces, and trained from youth 

To the gay vices of a liberal age, 

How came it now that year by year sped on 

To leave the proud count in his silent halls 

Hoarding the gold once lavished ? 

Young and fair, 

The haughtiest noble of the Roman court, 

The stateliest of the high-born throng that graced 

(147) 



148 COUNT JULIO. 

Its princely revels, he had left the feast, 
Bidding the bright wine that he quaffed in parting 
Be to him thence accursed. Never more 
Checked he his courser by the Tiber's banks, 
Nor struck the sweet chords of his lute, nor trod 
Glad measures with the bright-lipped Roman dames. 
And from the lintels of his banquet hall 
The spider balanced on her gossamer thread; 
Dust heaped the silken couches; and where swept 
Golden fringed curtains to the chequered floor, 
The rat gnawed silently, and gray moths fed 
On the rich produce of the Indian loom. 
Men shunned his threshold, and his palace doors 
Creaked on their rusty hinges. Prince and peasant 
Alike turned coldly at his coming step. 
The very beggar that at noontide lay 
Basking 'neath sunlight in the quiet street, 
Stretched not his hand forth as the miser passed. 

He cared not for their scorn ; man's breath to him 
Was as the wind that sweeps a blasted oak 
And finds no leaf to flutter. Fate had left 



— 



COUNT JULIO. 149 

Only two things on earth for him to love — 

The gold he heaped, and the fair motherless child 

Who, by his side, grew up to womanhood — 

And these he worshipped, loathing all things else. 

His couch was meager as a cloistered monk's ; 

Bianca's head was pillowed upon down; 

His fare was scanty, and his garments coarse, 

But she was clad like princes, and her board 

Heaped with the costliest viands. From the world 

He shrank abhorrent, but Bianca shone 

Proudest and fairest in a brilliant court. 

Her youth had been most lonely. At his side 

To watch the piling of the golden heaps 

He told so greedily ; to play alone 

In gardens where no hand had put aside 

The flowers and weeds that in one tangled woof 

Hung o'er the fountain's dusty bed, and crept 

Round the tall porticoes : perchance to sit 

Hour after hour all silent at his feet, 

Twining her small arms and her baby throat 

With the rare treasures that his caskets held ; 

Rubies, and pearls, and flashing carcanets, 



150 COUNT JULIO. 

Her costly playthings ; all companionless, 
These were her childish pastimes. Years wore on, 
Till the close dawn of perfect womanhood 
Flushed in her cheek and brightened in her eye. 
And the girl learned to know how fair the face 
Those dingy walls had cloistered from the sun ; 
To bear her head more proudly, and to step, 
If not so lightly, with a queenlier tread. 
Love-songs were framed for her, her midnight sleep 
Was broken by the sound of silver lutes, 
And the young gallants caracoled their steeds 
Gayly, at eve, beneath her balcony. 

She went forth to the world, and careless lips 

Told her the shame that was her heritage. 

And scornful fingers pointed, as she passed, 

To the rare jewels, and the broidered robes, 

That decked the miser's daughter. Envious tongues 

Gilded anew the half-forgotten tale, 

And it became the marvel of all Rome. 

Thus till the diadem of gems and gold 

Burned on her white brow like a circling flame, 



c- 



COUNT JULIO. 151 

And she went writhing home, to weep, to loathe 

The sordid parent who had brought this blight 

Upon the joyous promise of her youth. 

It was the still noon of a summer night, 

When the young countess from her father's roof 

Fled, with a noble of the Roman court ! 

Morn came, and through the empty corridors, 

The balconies, the gardens, the wide halls, 

In vain they sought her. Noon passed by, and then 

The truth was guessed, not spoken. Silently 

Count Julio trod the marble staircases, 

And pausing by the door that once was hers, 

Stood a brief moment, and then, pressing on, 

Stepped through the quiet chamber. All was still, 

Bearing no traces of her recent flight. 

Here lay a slipper, here a silken robe, 

And here a lute thrown down, with a white glove 

Flung carelessly beside it. Still the air 

Breathed of the delicate perfumes she had loved! 

He glanced but once around the silent room, 
Then from the mirrored and silk-draperied walls 



152 COUNT JULIO. 

Cast his eye downward o'er his shrunken form, 
His meager garments. Few the words he spake, 
And muttered low; but in them came a curse 
So blasphemous, so hideous in its depth 
Of impotent rage, that they who at his side 
Yet stood in lingering pity, with blanched lips 
Turned to the threshold, and crept shuddering forth. 

He breathed his sorrow to no human ear, 

But left it charnelled in his heart, to breed 

Corruption there. None knew how wearily 

The hours passed on beneath those lonely walls ; 

None saw him when, by midnight still a watcher, 

Starting and trembling as, inconstantly, 

The night winds swayed the curtains to and fro; 

Fancying the rustle of her silken robe, 

Her footfall on the staircase! Time sped on, 

To strike the dulled bloom from his cheek, and scare 

The soul that once had queened it on his brow : 

A bent and worn old man, upon whose breast 

Hung the neglected masses of his beard, 

With meager hands habitually clenched, 



COUNT JULIO. 153 

Till the sharp nails wore furrows in the palms. 
Thus stole he forth at even, and, with eyes 
Lost in the golden future of his dreams, 
Sped through the busy crowd, unmarked, unheeding. 

Once had he looked upon Bianca's face — 
Once had she knelt before him, with her child 
Gasping upon her breast, and prayed for succour. 
The unwept victim of a drunken brawl 
Her lord had fallen, and the palace halls 
That owned her mistress, were deserted now. 
She had braved fear and hunger, till her child 
Wailed dying on her bosom ; and so urged, 
Pride, shame, forgotten in a mother's love, 
Clung to his knees for pardon. But in vain. 
He cursed her as she knelt, bade her go forth, 
And 'mid the loathsome suppliants that unveil 
Disease and suffering to the eye of wealth, 
Bare, too, her anguish to the glance of pity. 
Then as she lingered, spurned her from his feet 
With words that chilled her agony to dread, 
And drove her thence in horror. 

From that day 



154 COUNT JULIO. 

From that day 
His very blood seemed charged "with bitterness. 
Miser and usurer both, upon the wrecks 
Of others' happiness he built his own. 
His name became accursed in the land, 
And with his withering soul his body grew 
Scarce human in its ghastly hideousness. 

The bulb enshrouds the lily, and within 
The most unsightly form may folded lie 
The white wings of an angel. But in him 
Seemed all the sweet humanities of life 
Coldly encharnelled, and no hand divine 
Rolled from his breast the weary weight of sin, 
To bid them go forth unto suffering man 
Like gracious ministers. 

And she, alas ! 
"Whom he had madly driven forth to ruin ? 
Earth hath no words to tell how dark the change 
That clothed her fallen spirit. O'er the waste 
Of want and ruin that engulfed her fortunes, 
She had sent forth the white dove, purity, 



COUNT JULIO. 155 

And it returned no more. The Roman dames - 
Took not her name upon their scornful lips. 
Her form became a model for the artist, 
And her rare face went down to future ages 
Limned on his canvass. Ye may mark it yet 
In the long galleries of the Vatican, 
Varied, yet still the same. Now robed in pride, 
As monarchs in their garb of Tyrian purple; 
Now with a Magdalen's blue mantle drawn 
Over the bending forehead. As the marble 
Sleeps in unsullied whiteness on the tomb, 
Taking no taint from the foul thing it covers, 
Her beauty bore no blight from guilt, but lived 
A monument that made her name immortal. 

Night had uprisen, clothed with storms and gloom. 

No taper lit the solitary hall, 

But to and fro with feeble steps its lord 

Paced through the darkness. Midnight came, and then 

Pausing beside the groaning door that weighed 

Its rusty hinge, Count Julio, crouching, peered 

Into the gloom without ; for stealthy feet 



o — 



156 COUNT JULIO. 

Whose echo struck upon his wary ear, 
Had crossed the lower hall, and slowly now 
Trod the great staircase. 

'Twas no robber's step, 
Faint, slow, and halting ever and anon 
As though in weariness. His sharpened sense 
Caught, 'mid the fitful pauses of the wind, 
The headlong dashing of the driven rain, 
A sound of painful breathing, nay, of sobs, 
Bursting, and then as suddenly suppressed. 

Shuddering he stood, and, as the storm's red bolt 
Leapt through the windows, lighting, as it passed, 
A dusky shape that cowered at the flash, 
He shrank within the chamber, and again 
Listened in silence. 

Nearer came the sound, — 
A tall form crossed the threshold, and threw back 
"What seemed a heavy mantle. Then again 
Glanced the pale lightning, and Count Julio knew, 
By the long hair that swept her garments' hem, 
Bianca ! 



COUNT JULIO. 157 

They who through that night of fear 
Kept watch with storm and terror till the mora, 
Bore its dark memories even to the tomb. 
For shrieks and cries seemed mingled with the wind, 
And voices, as of warring fiends, prevailed 
O'er its low mutterings ! 

Morn awoke at last, 
And with its earliest gleam Count Julio crept 
Forth through his palace gardens. Swollen drops 
Hung on the curved roofs of the porticoes ; 
His footsteps dashed them from the earth-bowed leaves, 
And the long tangles of the matted grass. 
But, over head, the day broke gloriously. 

Where once a fountain to the sunlight leapt, 
A marble Naiad by its weedy bed 
Stood on her pedestal. With hand outstretched 
She grasped a hollowed shell, now brimming o'er, 
While a green vine that round her arm had crept, 
Rose, serpent-like, and in the chalice dipt 
Its curling tendrils. Thither turned his eye, 
Just as the red uprising of the sun 



158 COUNT JULIO. 

Smote the pale statue, and crept brightening down 
Even to its mossy base. Mantled and prone, 
A heap that scarcely seemed a human form 
Crouched in the shadow, and with tottering feet 
The old man hurried onward. Motionless, 
It stirred not at his coming. Nearer still 
He marked a white face upward turned, clenched hands 
Locked in the hair that swept its ghastly brow. 
Shading his weak eyes from the blinding sun, 
Cowering in trembling horror to the earth, 
Still on he crept, then, bending softly down, 
Spake in a smothered voice, "Hist, hist, Bianca !" 

Oh, mockery ! the ear that he had filled 

With curses, woke not to the tones of love ! 

The breast that he had spurned from him, heaved not 

At his wild anguish. Death had done its work. 

The tempest had been merciless as the parent 

Who drove her forth to meet it, and the flash 

Of its red eye more withering than his scorn. 

Shunned both in penitence and guilt, forsaken 

By those who only prized her for the beauty 



COUNT JULIO. 159 

Time, and perchance remorse, had touched with blight, 
Drenched by the rain, all breathless with the storm, 
Homeless and hopeless, she had crept to him 
Once more a suppliant, and, spurned rudely forth, 
Here had lain down despairing, and so perished. 



DAME MARGARET. 

With mettled steed, and hawk on hand, 
Gay ride ye forth at morn's arise, 

While light with shade, as dreams with sleep, 
Strives battling o'er the skies. 

Fair floats your plume athwart the breeze, 
And, loosed from band and golden net, 

Your ringlets chase the summer wind, 
Dame Margaret ! 

Your steed stands checked within the gate, 

With upreared hoofs, and crest of pride ; 

Your coupled hounds bay down in ire 

The echoes as they chide ; 

(160) 



DAME MARGARET. 161 

The page holds slack the silken leash, 

The steed that checks his light curvette 
Bears hotly on the golden bit, 
Dame Margaret ! 

Ride forth, nor read the heart would lose 
Life, sense, and soul, all these save love, 

To be the breeze your ringlets kiss, 
The hawk upon your glove ; 

Ride forth your bonny earl beside, 
Nor deign to think how once ye met 

At morning's blush a lowlier love, 
Dame Margaret ! 



FOREST SCENE. 

I KNOW a forest vast and old, 

A shade so deep, so darkly green, 
That morning sends her shaft of gold 

In vain to pierce its leafy screen. 
I know a brake where sleeps the fawn, 

The soft-eyed fawn, through noon's repose, 
For noon with all the calm of dawn 

Lies hushed beneath those dewy boughs. 

Oh ! proudly there the forest kings 

Their banners lift on vale and mount ; 

And cool and fresh the wild grass springs 

By lonely path, by sylvan fount ; 

(162) 



FOREST SCENE. 163 

There o'er the fair leaf-laden rill 

The laurel sheds its clustered bloom, 
And throned upon the rock-wreathed hill, 

The rowan waves his scarlet plume. 

No huntsman's call, no baying hound, 

Scares from his rest the light-limbed stag, 
But following faint his airy bound 

Glad echo leaps from crag to crag ; 
From morn till eve the wood-birds sing, 

And, by the wild wave's glittering play, 
The pheasant plumes her glossy wing, 

The doe lies couched at close of day. 

From slippery ledge, from moss-grown rock, 

Dash the swift waters at a bound, 
And from the foam that veils the shock 

Floats every wavelet sparkle-crowned. 
By brake, and dell, and lawny glade, 

O'er gnarled root, o'er mossy stone, 
Beneath the forest's emerald shade 

The brook winds murmuring, chiding on. 



164 FOREST SCENE. 

Far floating o'er its limpid breast 

The lily sends her petals fair, 
And couched beside her regal crest 

The balm-flower scents the drowsy air. 
From spray and vine, o'er rocky ledge 

Hang blossoms wild of scarlet dye, 
And on the curved and sanded edge 

The pink-lined shells, wave-polished, lie. 

There wakes no tone of idle mirth 

Amid those shadows vast and dim, 
But from the gentle lips of earth, 

How soft and low her forest hymn ! 
How soft and low where stirs the wind 

Through the dark arches of the wood, 
Where, mass on mass, the boughs entwined, 

Hang whispering o'er the chiming flood ! 

When twilight skies look faintly down, 
When noon lies hushed on leaf and spray, 

When midnight casts her silver crown 
Before the throne of god-like day, 



FOKEST SCENE. 165 

There still to earth's perpetual choir 

The same sweet harmony is given : 
For angels wake her sacred lyre, 

And every chord is strung by Heaven. 



TWILIGHT. 

With one large planet, like a chalice prest 

In her twin shadowy hands, comes Twilight, slow, 
Advancing with dropt eyes, and bending low 

Where day reclining pillows on the West, 

Laves his worn feet with tears, and with her hair 
Mantles their whiteness ; while arising faint 
As the thought-prayer of some exhausted saint, 

Throng the fresh evening perfumes through the air. 

And when the night with trailing steps draws nigh, 

Sealing the Orient with its cumbrous gloom, 

Muffing her brow with darkness, sits she then, 

(166) 



o 



TWILIGHT. 167 

Till, when the dawn keeps angel ward on high, 
Behold her kneeling at the vacant tomb, 
Clad in the dark blue of a Magdalen ! 



c — 



-o 



THE SEASONS. 

Spring is the sweet soul of the shrouded year ; 
Psyche, the butterfly, with painted wings, 
Forth issuing from the stony lips of death. 
Summer 's a queen, that to the sun's pavilion 
Comes with rich gifts and odours, and a train 
Of rainbow-girdled showers, like eastern almas, 
With tinkling feet all musical with soft bells. 
Autumn's a stag, that, hunted through the hills 
By the keen hound-like winds, flies, dropping blood, 
Or stands at bay in the full pride of beauty. 
And Winter minds me of some lone, wild bird, 

That, wandering from the Arctic, makes its nest 

(168) 



THE SEASONS. 169 

In solitary fens, seeking for food 

The red marsh berry, and the mailed buds 

Of the young, tender branches ; or, athirst, 

Driving its sharp bill through the polished ice 

Into the wave below. It hath no song, 

Only a few weird notes ; and when the sun 

Melts into lucid pools the snow that lies 

In the rock crevices, it will go north 

With the white water-fowl, that trooping fly, 

In ranked battalions, through the gates of March. 



THE LOVE QUARREL. 

Nay, I'm sure you've not forgotten, though you fain 

would have it so ; 
I know you've not forgotten: shall I tell you why I 

know? 
For all Maud lingers at your side, and Blanche is 

bending low, 
To listen to your whispers, till her breath is on your 

brow, 
For all you smile when Lilia smiles, your smiling 

mocks at glee, 
And by that token, I believe, you're thinking now 

of me. 

(170) 



THE LOVE QUARREL. 171 

As you lie there in the shadow, with the sunlight on 

your hair, 
With the misty floating curtains looped around you 

drooping fair, 
The velvet sinking to your limbs, the only murmur 

near, 
The music of a woman's voice, low-tuned to meet your 

ear, 
You're thinking how, one summer noon, when summer 

suns were warm, 
I watched beside your half-repose, and your head lay 

on my arm. 



Then I sang you quaint love-ballads, sang you rhymed 

and measured words, 
But your own were ever sweeter, and the singing of 

the birds 
From the garden chimed in softly, but I thought your 

voice was best, 
And wished the ballad ended, and the little birds at 

rest, 



172 THE LOVE QUARREL. 

So I might hear you speak again. You're thinking of 

it still- 
Let Blanche's golden tresses sweep your forehead at 

their will ! 

And how we jested softly, while your breath upon my 

brow 
Fell warmer than another's kiss ; and your lightest 

word sank low, 
Low through the full tides of my soul, as a jewel that 

is thrown 
'Mid the waters, still lies hoarded when the ripple is 

all gone. 
Without, a willow trailed its wands along the mossy 

eaves, 
And your heart was full of love-words as the tree was 

full of leaves. 

The leaves are fallen from the tree to bud i' the April 

rain, 
And your lips are very silent now, but their music 

comes again. 



THE LOVE QUARREL. 173 

And we'll marvel in our summer love, why thus with 

cold delay 
We kept the sunshine from our lips when our hearts 

were warm as May. 
Yet give your pride free rein the while, all wilful 

though it be, 
For I'd rather ten times bend to you than you should 

bend to me. 

Though Maud still kneels beside you, with her white 

hands glancing where 
The cushion's silken tassels swing beneath your floating 

hair, 
And though Blanche is bending lower, while with 

smiling, upturned eyes 
You have wooed her head still nearer by your indistinct 

replies, 
I can look the while securely, I can smile the while 

to know 
That you have not yet forgotten, though you fain 

would make it so. 



— o 



REST. 

Fresh from the tents, a soul, bright-mailed, 

Stood numbered in the ranks of life, 
But with the first rude tumult failed 

And fled, a recreant, from the strife. 
Then sad, ashamed, and desolate, 
Put off her armour's heavy weight, 
And wandering, clad in hermit guise, 

Through paths waylaid by ghastly fears, 
Implored, with wet, uplifted eyes, 

A gift that's won by blood not tears, 

Till with her own grief coldly blent, 

Rose other words, austerely sent 

To chide her graceless discontent. 

" Truce to thy clamour, vain and fond, 

Rest is not here, it lies beyond." 

(174) 



REST. 175 

Beyond? where noontide shadows stand 

Under the boughs, deep down the vales? 
Where silence lifts a calming hand 

O'er leaf that stirs, and cloud that sails? 
With earnest eyes, but looks resigned, 
She wanders now and thinks to find 
Within some green, leaf-shaded glen, 

God's open page beside her shining, 
Noon, like a blue-robed Magdalen, 

Close to the wooded wave reclining. 
With hopes that took the garb of fear, 
Her watch she kept, and noon drew near ; 
Then said that strange voice, cold and clear, 
" Truce to thy hoping, vain and fond, 
Rest is not here, it lies beyond." 

Ah me, poor soul ! not yet she droops, 

With hands meek crossed, and mournful eyes, 

Till eve lets loose her shadowy troops, 
Till night's black turrets paint the skies, 

While weary hours seem weary years, 

She counts the time by falling tears. 



176 REST. 

At even there came a cold wind, sent 

To drift her poor hopes, crushed and sere, 
And on night's cloudy battlement 

There stalked, oh God, what spectral Fear ! 
When the last shadow, dim and gray, 
Sank hovering to the brow of day, 
She heard that strange voice, pitying, say, 
" Truce to thy lingering, vain and fond, 
Rest is not here, it lies beyond." 



DECEMBER. 

Now through the distant vales the fawn's light foot 
Leaveth its cloven impress on the snow ; 
The wood's soft echoes mock the baying hound; 
The hunter builds his watch-fire on the hills ; 
The school-boy, from his morning task released, 
Shoulders the rifle, and goes blithely forth 
To start the dusky pheasant from her nest, 
Down in the ferny hollows. All day long 
There is a sound of muffled hoofs, half drowned 
By the quick sleigh-bell that rejoicingly 
Rings in the new-born monarch. All day long, 
The woodsman plies his sharp and sudden axe 

Under the crashing branches. 

(177) 



178 DECEMBER. 

Vale and mead, 
And steadfast wave lie stretched beneath my eye, 
Clad in one uniform livery. O'er the lake 
The skaters flit like shadows, and afar 
The wagoner plods beside his smoking team ; 
The sportsman, followed by his frolic hound, 
Springs up the breezy hill-side. Save for these, 
All breathing life alike seems motionless. 



A POET'S LOVE. 

The stag leaps free in the forest's heart, 

But thy step is lighter, my love, my bride ! 

Light as the quick-footed breezes that part 

The plumy ferns on the mountain's side; 

Swift as the zephyrs that come and pass 

O'er the waveless lake, and the billowy grass. 

I hear thy voice where the white wave gleams, 

In the one-toned bells of the rippled streams, 

In the silvery boughs of the aspen tree, 

In the wind that stirreth the shadowy pine, 

In the shell that moans for the distant sea, 

Never was voice so sweet as thine ! 

C179) 



ISO A POET'S LOVE. 

Never a sound through the even dim 
Came half so soft as thy vesper hymn. 

I have followed fast, from the lark's low nest, 

Thy breezy step to the mountain crest. 

The livelong day I have wandered on, 

Till the stars were up, and the twilight gone, 

Ever unwearied where thou hast roved, 

Fairest, and purest, and best beloved ! 

I have felt thy kiss in the leafy aisle, 

And thy breath astir in my floating hair; 
I have met the light of thy haunting smile 

In the deep still woods, and the sunny air ; 
For thou lookest down from the bending skies, 
And the earth is glad with thy laughing eyes. 

When my heart is sad, and my pulse beats low, 
Whose touch so light on my aching brow ? 
Who cometh in dreams to my midnight sleep? 

Who bendeth over my noonday rest ? 
Who singeth me songs in the forest deep, 

Laying my head to her gentle breast ? 



A POET'S LOVE. 181 

When life grows dim to my weary eye, 
When joy departetk, and sorrow is nigh, 
Who, 'neath the track of the stars, save thee, 
Speaketh or singeth of hope to me ?. 



There comes a time when the morn shall rise, 

Yet charm no smile to thy filmed eyes. 

There comes a time when thou liest low 

With the roses dead on thy frozen brow, 

With a pall hung over thy tranced rest, 

And the pulse asleep in thy silent breast. 

There shall come a dirge through the valleys drear, 

And a. white-robed priest to thine icy bier. 

His lips are cold, but his dim eyes weep, 

And he maketh thy grave where the snow falls deep. 

Woe is me, when I watch and pray 

For the lightest sound of thy coming foot, 
For the softest note of thy summer lay, 

For the faintest chord of thy vine-strung lute ! 
Woe is me, when the storms sweep by, 
And the mocking winds are my sole reply ! 



ALINE'S CHOICE. 

Rudolph is a baron, 

He dreams till noon on a pillow fine; 
From the dusk of eve to the dusk of dawn, 

Drinking deep of the amber wine. 
But Ludovic, the peasant, 

Lies like a deer in the dewy brake; 
With his broad palm for a drinking cup, 
Stoops to a breezy lake. 

Rudolph rides to the knightly chase 

With hawk, and pack, and a mounted train ; 

Ludovic, with a single hound, 

Wanders afoot o'er the windy plain. 

(182) 



A LINE'S CHOICE. 183 

The one "will rest in a silken tent 

When the quarry has dropped, and the mort is played, 
The other lies in a cleft of rock 
Under a hemlock's shade. 

Rudolph will give me a palfrey white, 
With silken saddle, and stirrup of gold, 

Ludovic in his arms of steel 

Has borne me far through the heat and cold. 

The noble has promised a chain of gems, 
Broidered kerchief, and mantle gay ; 

The peasant will shear me a fleece to spin 
A gown for my wedding day. 

What should I do with jewels 

On my neck that is brown with the sun and rain ? 
How should I fasten my long, loose hair 

With a comb of pearl, or a golden chain ? 
I'll crown it fair with a myrtle wreath, 

I'll gather it back with a riband gay, 
And I'll wrap myself in my peasant's cloak 
To keep the cold away. 



184 ALINE'S CHOICE. 

I hold my breath in yon lone old halls; 

Echoes that lurk in the niches there 
Say over my words with a hollow laugh, 

Stealthily follow from stair to stair ; 
Knights and dames on the pictured wall, 

Look, as I pass, with a steadfast frown, 
And the mastiff that's chained in the castle court 
Barks at my peasant gown. 

I know a roof where the wild grass hangs 
From the moss and mould to the cabin door ; 

I know a hound that will crouch and fawn 

At the sound of my step on the rush-strewn floor! 

Keep your gifts, oh Rudolph, 

The chain of pearls, and the golden band, 

To match the pride of a fairer neck, 
To shine on a whiter hand. 



FROST PICTURES. 

When, like a sullen exile driven forth, 

Southward, December drags his icy chain, 
He graves fair pictures of his native North 
On the crisp window pane. 



So some pale captive blurs, with lips unshorn, 

The latticed glass, and shapes rude outlines there, 

With listless finger, and a look forlorn, 

Cheating his dull despair. 

(185) 



186 



FROST PICTURES. 



The fairy fragments of some Arctic scene, 

I see to-night; blank wastes of Polar snow, 
Ice-laden boughs, and feathery pines that lean 
Over ravines below. 



Black, frozen lakes, and icy peaks blown bare, 
Break the white surface of the crusted pane, 
And spear-like leaves, long ferns, and blossoms fair, 
Linked in a silvery chain. 



Draw me, I pray thee, by this slender thread, 

Fancy, thou sorceress, bending, vision-wrought, 
O'er that dim well, perpetually fed 

By the clear springs of thought ! 



Northward I turn, and tread those dreary strands, 

Lakes where the wild-fowl breed, the swan abides ; 
Shores where the white fox, burrowing in the sands, 
Harks to the droning tides. 



FROST PICTURES. 187 

And seas where, drifting on a raft of ice, 

The she-bear rears her young; and cliffs so high, 
The dark-winged birds that emulate their rise 
Melt through the pale blue sky. 



There, all night long, with far-diverging rays 

And stalking shades, the red Auroras glow ; 
From the keen heaven, mock suns with pallid blaze 
Light up the Arctic snow. 



Guide me, I pray, along those waves remote, 
That deep unstartled from its primal rest ; 
Some errant sail, the fisher's lone, light boat, 
Borne waif-like o'er its breast ! 



Lead me, I pray, where never shallop's keel 

Brake the dull ripples throbbing to their caves ; 
Where the mailed glacier with his armed heel 
Spurs the resisting waves ! 



— o 



183 FROST PICTURES. 

Paint me, I pray, the phantom hosts that hold 

Celestial tourneys when the midnight calls, 
On airy steeds, "with lances bright and bold, 
Storming her ancient halls ! 



Yet, while I look, the magic picture fades, 

Melts the bright tracery from the frosted pane ; 
Trees, vales, and cliffs, in sparkling snows arrayed, 
Dissolve in silvery rain. 



Without, the day's pale glories sink and swell 
Over the black rise of yon wooded height ; 
The moon's thin crescent, like a stranded shell 
Left on the shores of night. 



Hark how the north wind, with a hasty hand 

Rattling my casement, frames his mystic rhyme ; 
House thee, rude minstrel, chanting through the land 
Runes of the olden time ! 



FROM A TRUE WIFE TO ONE OVER BOLDE. 

Be not amazed that scornfulle I reprove 

The boldenesse did my modestie misprize, 
Nor thinke it strange that gentle seeminge lippes 

Should arm their softnesse with a sterne disguise. 
Roses may harbour bees, and serpents wilde 

Under sweet summer's flowerie zone abide, 
And shame-faced Love wears, hooded at her will, 

On her fayre wriste the brighte-eyed merlin, pride. 

As reedes bende lowe before a cominge storme, 

Well mote your boldnesse shrinke before my frowne : 

Well my disdaynful glance mote quelle your owne, 

As hawkes do strike the coward quarrie downe. 

x (189) 



190 A TKUE WIFE TO ONE OVER BOLDE. 

Yet holde me not of temper cold and strange, 
That so I keepe my matron armour brighte ; 

If my deare Lorde had claymed his lawfulle due, 
How readie were these lippes to yielde his righte ! 



-o 



LINES WRITTEN FOR A PICTURE. 

Sing me to-night some gay refrain, 

Sweet rhymes that ring out peals of gladness, 
Nor let thy jesting lips profane 

Even the name of sadness. 

Put from thine eye its vague unrest, 
And chide the darkness from thy brow, 

That we, who met with smile and jest, 
May part as lightly now. 

We've scoffed at love, we've laughed at faith, 

(Ah, woe the while for you and me !) 

No pledge that's breathed by human breath 

Were pledge to such as we. 

(191) 



192 LINES WRITTEN FOR A PICTURE. 

Oh, we've trifled away the sweetest dreams 
Ever let loose from the courts above, 

And linked our jests to the noblest themes 
God and the angels love ! 

Shame me no more with mimic sighs — 
Poor cheat of love ! poor mock of woe i 

But show me in thy lifted eyes 
The scorn I look thee now. 



INCONSTANCY. 

They told me he'd forsake me; that the words 

With which he charmed my very soul away, 

Were like the hollow music of a shell 

That learns to mock the ocean's deeper voice. 

For he had listened to love's tones until 

His ear and lip, though not his heart, had grown 

Familiar with their melody. Nay, more, 

They said his very boyhood had been marked 

By worse than a boy's follies, that in youth, 

The season of high hopes, when lesser men 

Put on their manhood as a monarch's heir 

Rich robes and royalty, his poor ambition 

Asked but new charms and pleasures, newer loves, 

(193) 



194 INCONSTANCY. 

New lips to smile until their sweetness palled, 

And softer hands to clasp his own, until 

He wearied even of so light a fetter. 

Thus did they pluck me from him, but in vain ; 

For when did warning stay a woman's heart? 

I kneiv all this, and yet I trusted him. 

Yea, with a child's blind faith I gave my fate 

Into his hands, content that he should know 

How absolute his power and my weakness. 

Speak not of pride, I never felt its lash ; 

There is no place for fallen Lucifer 

In the pure heaven of a sinless love ; 

And when he left me, as they said he would, 

My spirit had no room for aught save grief: 

Giving the lie to my own conscious heart, 

I taxed stern truth with falsehood to the last. 

But when to doubt was madness, when, perforce, 

Even from my credulous eyes the scales had fallen, 

What was the cold scorn of a thousand worlds 

To the one thought that for a counterfeit 

I'd staked my woman's all of love — and lost ! 



THE WINGED HORSEMAN. 

Down the green distance of cathedral woods, 

Methought a youth sat mounted for a journey, 

Reining a steed within whose cloudy eyes 

Slumber and flame contended. I could see 

How sullenly he hung upon the bit, 

And trod all greenness from the place beneath 

With ponderous, restless hoofs. Light sat the rider, 

As one who feels his strength. 

The early dawn 

Lit the pale semblance of an angel's glory 

Over his brow. Nor sword nor shield bare he. 

Many I saw on fretting, fiery steeds, 

(195) 



J 








o 


196 


THE 


WINGED 


HORSEMAN. 




Some 


armoured, and some masked, but few, 


like him, 


Wing 


sd with soft 
wand, 


plumes. 


His right hand 


grasped a 


That, 


like a prism 


i, showed the plain white 


light 


A mine of jewels. 


Pendent 


from his neck, 





Hung to his breast a mirror clear, wherein 
All life made pictures. Else those mystical shapes 
That walk as ghosts the troubled house of sleep, 
Or the unhallowed breath of that dark steed, 
Dimmed it awhile. His eyes were full of thought, 
Deep and dream-haunted, but their upward glance 
Was like the free sweep of an eagle's wing. 

He rode forth on his journey, the black steed 
Moving with cumbrous pace, save when, incensed 
By the firm curb, he tried his master's strength, 
And with wide fiery eyes and trembling nostrils 
Reared and leapt forward. As the noon drew near, 
The rider's arm grew weary of restraining, 
And many passed by with reins flying loose, 
Urging him on. Some laughed aloud for scorn, 
To see him play the laggard. But ofttimes 



THE WINGED HORSEMAN. 197 

Bright forms came shaping through the dim blue air, 
And voices spake to him they wist not of, 
And while he looked and listened, the black steed 
Lay down and slumbered. 

Farther on, I saw 
A river with alternate light and shade, 
Ringed like a serpent. Some of those who passed, 
Waked only by the cold lap of its waves, 
Slept on their flying coursers. 

Woven leaves 
Replaced the halo. Those afar, beheld 
The air all rainbowed o'er the youth. A veil 
Betwixt his vision and the outer world 
Lay like a vapour that, dissolving, spreads 
Into wild phantoms, as the mists of sleep 
Wreathe into those strange shapes that men call dreams. 

Methought they paused upon the river bank, 

Rider and horse. The steed, with planted hoofs, 

Stood resolute, and once the rider reeled 

As giddy with the flowing of the waves, 

And once he turned, with lingering, loving looks 



198 THE WINGED HORSEMAN. 

Sped to the land whose lengthened shadows fell 
Deep on the waters. All his laurels dropped 
Upon the shore he left. His bright wand lay 
Adrift upon the river. The black steed 
Swam in its wake, and with his rein left loose 
Played the swift ripples ; and they drew a veil 
Over his sight, and sang into his ears 
Where the contending strains of heaven and earth 
Met and made discord. When I looked again, 
Lo, the pale rider, who with outstretched arms, 
Trod the fast-sliding currents, till ashore 
Plucked by extended hands ! Thenceforth I saw 
Only the glorified outlines of a form 
Cast on the waters brokenly. Beyond, 
In my faint soul excessive light made darkness. 



TWO CHANTS. 

" Te Deum Laudamus !" through green river meadows, 

Where noon, pacing slow, holds in leash the fleet shadows, 

Blown like a cloud from St. Agatha's altar, 

Drifts down the south wind the loud chanted psalter; 

Under the light of the tapers lies sleeping 

One whose fair soul was not whitened by weeping. 

Sorrow stood far from her — love, in mute reverence, 

Knelt to the shrine of her starry intelligence — 

Charmed by her music of being, dull cavil 

Lay coiled in her presence ; and lion-like evil, 

Lying in wait for her soul frail and tender, 

Crouched at the blaze of its virginal splendour. 

(199) 



200 TWO CHANTS. 

Over her calm face a radiance immortal 

Flows from the smile at her mouth's silent portal — 

They who kneel round her from matins till even, 

As they kneel at the tombs of the blessed in Heaven, 

Think not to question that presence resplendent 

Where fled the soul that is shining ascendant. 

Down from the gray clouds the March winds are swooping, 

Out of ' the low soil pale phantoms are trooping ; 

Lift on the wings of St. Agatha's choir 

The great "De Profundis" rolls solemnly higher — 

Under the light of the tapers is lying 

One whom keen anguish made ready for dying. 

Sorrow, that writes with the pen of an angel 
God's burning thoughts through her mystic evangel; 
Passion, that, laden with memories tender, 
Crowns himself king with their tropical splendour ; 
AVeeping repentance with hands lifted palely — 
These were the spirits that walked with her daily. 

Death, creeping near while she knelt in devotion, 
Froze on her features their mournful emotion. 



TWO CHANTS. 201 

They, who reluctant draw nearer to falter 
"Ave" or vow at the steps of the altar, 
Marking it thence, ask, in fear, if the sorrow 
Lying slain on her lips will not quicken to-morrow? 



A FRAGMENT. 

Faitii is seraph born, 
And mindful of her origin, most wise, 
For she has listened at the feet of Christ ; 
Calm-hearted as an angel, for she keeps 
The trustfulness of childhood, as a sabbath 
Keeps the dawn's stillness. 

At her shining feet, 
Ah, then, be mute and listen, while she tells 
The chastened spirit what its pride of strength 
In vain petitions. All her words are pleasant 
As shadows by the way-side, and we bear 

Their memory with us as we pluck a branch 

(202) 



A FRAGMENT. 203 

From some green sheltering tree. And, through them 

fall, 
Like light through leaves, faint glimpses of a glory 
Yet unrevealed; some rays of that far sun 
That sends its shining to our distant hearts ; 
Gleams of the time when man, that grand conception 
Unworthily embodied, shall stand forth 
As God pronounced him first, ere, like an echo, 
Through each reverberating age, he grew 
With repetition feebler and unlike 
The great original. 



LINES. 

Up, up, thou sluggard, ere the noon reposing ! 

Don thy bright armour — breast-plate, casque, and spear ; 
Thou that went forth so glad to meet the morning, 
Tarriest thou here ? 

Oh, go thy way ! steep winds the path before me ; 

There mourns the cypress, there pale -willows nod, 
Standing for wayniarks o'er their graves, who, toiling, 
Fell as they trod. 

Too early didst thou call me from my slumber, 
From my sweet morning rest, and I am fain, 
Unduly tasked, to dream away unheeded 

Fever and pain. 

(204) 



LINES. 205 

Hear'st thou their songs who rock and rift surmounting 

Shout to their brethren in the vales beneath ? 
Seest thou the foremost on his spear point lifting 
Trophy and wreath? 

I hear sharp cries, a sound, of stifled moaning 
Blent with brave music, and a din of strife, 
Discordant tones to dove-eyed peace, proclaiming 
War to the knife. 

I see coiled adders, by the roadside lurking, 
Watch for the failing step, the foot astray, 
While overhead the keen-eyed eagles circling 
Wait for their prey. 

Look right nor left; stand firm, and dauntless meeting 

Death by the open stroke, the secret spring, 
Gathering thy proud fame as a robe around thee, 
Fall like a king ! 

Oh hence, I pray ! my soul," athirst for slumber, 

Close to her fount lies fainting on the brim ; 
Hears the sweet trilling of her waves, grass-muflled, 
Low-toned and dim. 



206 LINES. 

Let the old yews beside my pillow standing 

Spread wide their arms, surround me with their gloom ; 
And let the few pale blooms that I have gathered 
Fade on my tomb. 

Not so, not so ! unsheath a trenchant purpose, 

Press on with firm lip and uplifted eye, 
And hew out even from the rocks that daunt thee 
A fair white effigy. 



I 



GUENDOLEN, 

Old Ralph, the gray-haired serving man. 

Is nodding asleep by his pipe and can ; 

And Ursula, where the firelight falls, 

Tossing the shadows about the walls, 

Hears a death-watch tick in the beams above her, 

Keeping time to a tune she is thinking over. 

A bird within a silver ring 

Sits swinging softly to and fro, 
Shading his eyes with a crimson wing; 

Across the rafters all a-glow 

His shadow flits with a motion slow. 

(207) 



208 GUENDOLEN. 

Carven goblets from the wall 

Cast red flecks about the floor ; 

From over window and bolted door 
Antlers vast fling round the hall 
Shadowy arms that rise and fall 
Whenever the flames spring up to make 
The fresh-heaped fagots curl and break. 
The hound sleeps fast on the warm hearth stone, 
And, with dropt ears and muzzle thrown 
Over his slender outstretched limbs, 
Dreams deeper as the firelight dims: 

But Guendolen is wide awake; 
Vassal and lord to the chase have gone; 
Ralph and the dame and the drowsy crone 
Watch in Sir Ethel's hall alone. 

Wide awake was Guendolen; 

Sometimes she paced the oaken floor, 
Or, pausing at the barred door, 
Hearkened a space, and turning then 

Hung musing o'er the flames again. 

Sometimes she teased the bird, that still, 
Hiding under its painted wing, 



-Q 



GUENDOLEN. 209 

Answered her call and whet its bill 

Against the rim of its silver swing. 
And once from turrets twain, enshrined 

Deep in the heart of a wooded dell, 
A sound came coupled with the wind 

Like a slow counted knell. 
"How goes the night by the abbey bell?" 

Cried Ursula, awaking then ; 
" 'Tis twelve o' the clock," said Guendolen ; 
"Get thee to rest," said Guendolen; 

" For me, good mother, I may not sleep, 
So wild a wind comes up the glen, 

So wild a moan the forests keep." 
Now to her rest the crone hath gone ; 
Ralph asleep in the warder's chair, 
Is sitting without by the postern stair; 
And Guendolen watches alone. 



Swart shadows seemed to peer and float 

Deep in the corners and niches dim ; 
Over and under the rafters grim 

Flitted the bat; and an owl without, 



—6 



210 GUENDOLEN. 

In the fitful pauses of wind and rain, 
Tapped his beak at the -window pane. 

The wind is high and the clouds fly fast, 
But the stars shine out and the rain is past. 
"Oh, for the first gray glance of morn! 
Oh, for a blast of Sir Ethel's horn ! 
Chill is my heart, I know not why. 
Haunting the night with its boding eye, 
With crest erect, and ruffled wing, 
My bird sits watchful on its swing ; 
In his sleep the hound whines soft, 
The bat drops down from his flight aloft;" 
She pauses with a fearful start, 
With eyes upraised, and lips apart, 
And locked hands clasped across her heart. 
Shrill through the wind, far up the glen, 
What voice had shrieked " Help, Guendolen !" 
Glancing up at the casement high, 
She catches a glimpse of the western sky, 
But nothing sees save the stars that stand 
At anchor in its dark lagoon, 



GUENDOLEN. 211 

And the night, with a cloud like a snoTZ-white hand, 
Shading the moon. 

Unmantled, alone, 
Beneath portals of stone 
Fringed around with wet mosses, 

Low-arched, damp, and green, 
The threshold she crosses 

Unseen ! 

There were paths to the left, and paths to the right, 
And one that struck through a frowning wood; 
This was gloomy, and narrow, and rude; 

Boughs above shut in the night ; 

On either side an aspen stood 

Turning its leaves to the silver light ; 

And Guendolen here paused and paled, 

For on that tree our Lord was nailed ; 

Thence, from that day to this, 'tis said, 

Stirs every leaf with separate dread. 

Runlets that hide in the meadow grass, 
Moan in the distance and sobbing pass ; 



212 GUENDOLEN. 

The clouds drift whiter, the flagging wind 
Lies down in the brake like a wearied hind. 
She hears the rain-drops gliding soft 
To the leaf below from the leaf aloft; 
She hears the breeze in its distant flight 

Skimming over the marshy river, 
And from the wood to the open night 

Starts with a keen electric shiver. 
Over the postern a loophole bright 

Searches the dark with a lurid glare, 
Ursula there with lamp alight 

Sayeth her matin prayer. 
What tempted her hither? What o'erstrained chord, 
Struck in her heart by an elvish fear, 
Knelled the voice of her absent lord 

Into her wakeful ear? 

It is the wind that round her lingers, 
Plucking her back with its chilly fingers; 
'Tis only a brook that yonder passes, 
Stifling its sobs in the limp marsh grasses ; 
Those are pines in their funeral vesture, 
Waving her on with a solemn gesture ! 



GUENDOLEN. 213 

Out of the heart of the ■wooded dell 
Three times tolls the abbey bell ; 
And, in the wake of its echoed knell 

Follows a softer, weirder tone ; 
Her heart upleaping at the sound, 

Under the clasp of her broidered zone 
Grows eager as a leashed hound. 
Not breathed into her straining ear, 
But in her spirit, silver clear, 
Spoken far, yet sounding near, 
She hears Sir Ethel's voice again, 
And the words "Help, Guendolen !" 

She does not waken the hound asleep 

Dreaming within, by the glimmering light, 

But treads alone through the forest deep, 

Trusting herself to the lawless night. 

From drenched boughs the rain is shed 

At every step on her shrinking head : 

Deep in the hollows, the stealthy vine 

Catches her feet in its secret twine. 

There are dancing lights in the marshes damp 

Where the firefly kindles his fitful lamp, 

2a 



o- 



214 GUESDOLEN. 

All a-flame, like a burning gem 

Dropped from a fiend's red diadem ; 

Through the tufted moss, where the fern lies dead, 

The glow-worm shimmers, and, over head, 

A star betwixt the branches high 

Looks down through the leaves like a panther's eye. 



The path is lost, and Guendolen, 

Grown doubtful of her midnight fear, 
Stands on the skirt of a hollow glen 

And sees the dawn appear. 
But, ere the leaves wax green with day, 
She knows the chase has passed that way. 
The turf is broken and trampled sore, 

The low boughs hung with branches torn ; 
Here lies the plume Sir Ethel wore, 

And here his silver hunting horn. 
A steed that feeds at a fountain's edge, 
Scared by her step, through the matted sedge 
Drags his bruised limbs with pain, 
Catching his hoof in the trailing rein. 



GUENDOLEN. 215 

The hills crowd close, and the vale between 
Narrows to a deep ravine. 
Here the sombre woods divide ; 
Clutching the rocks with roots outspread, 
Trees that lean from either side 
Make midnight overhead; 
And only small bright blossoms grow 
On the lawny turf that lies below. 

But Guendolen, grown sudden pale, 

Sinks fainting nigh the shadowy pass, 
Seeing through a leafy veil 

One pillowed on the grass. 
With still arms tossed apart he lies, 
Dark twilight waxing in his eyes. 
Under the shade of a leaning crag 

Hung with a scarlet parasite, 
Two hounds that guard a wounded stag 

Crouch at its left and right ; 
Old Victor, chiefest of the pack, 

Gladdest at the bugle note, 
Keenest on the mazy track 

Ripped lengthwise from the throat, 



216 GUENDOLEN. 

Holds back his moans in savage pride ; 
And Elf is panting on his side. 
But Sylvia, wont to take her stand, 

Daily, by the castle board, 
Feeding from her master's hand ; 

Sylvia, that only loves her lord ; 

That, heedless of another's word 
Doeth gladly his behest, 
Hath dragged herself across his breast, 
And lies with limbs stretched out at rest. 



Turning slowly his weary head, 

" Sweet Guendolen !" the hunter said ; 

"What, Sylvia, ho!" the panting hound 
Only whimpered at the sound, 

Answering with dim upturned glance ; 
But she who slept a space beyond, 

Starting from her trance, 
With light feet muffled by the sward 
Drew nearer to her fainting lord. 
Over his wounds and his weary brows 
She laid wet leaves from the weeping boughs : 



GUENDOLEN. 217 

Silent, till a glad surprise 

Dawned through the darkness in his eyes ; 

Then from the bugle's ringing throat 

Sped so long and wild a note, 

Over the dells and the vales remote 

A flight of arrowy echoes sprang, 

From hill to hill the signal rang, 

And echoing horns and hounds that cried 

Out of the hollow glens replied. 

They who beside the watch-fire's flame 

Sought rest and food when even came, 

And, heedless of the midnight storm, 

Slept pillowed on the reeking earth, 
Believed their lord found shelter warm 
Beside some cottage hearth; 
Nor guessed how, parted from his train, 
He crossed the broken scent again, 
And cheering with a hunter's zeal 

His flagging hounds upon the way, 
With planted foot and brandished steel 

Held the brown stag at bay. 



o- 



218 



GUENDOLEN. 



Now, startled by his bugle blast, 

Quitting their lairs in the scented grass, 
Blythe hunters up the valley, fast, 

Came riding towards the lonely pass. 



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